


One , Last Horcrux: Rocket's Past

by ThePotal



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Multi, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-16
Updated: 2017-06-23
Packaged: 2018-11-01 13:18:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 47,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10922589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThePotal/pseuds/ThePotal
Summary: The crazed scientists of Halfworld, desperate to keep their location secret to the Nova corps, makes a deal with an unknown force, in which they willingly trade one subject back and forth to experiment on. Sixteen years later, the Guardians find a journal over the past of Subject 89P13 and discover Rocket's past is out to get him,while Harry finds one last Horcuxe he never expected.





	1. Found

 

"We'll get the ship and take out that energy dome thingy. Stall for time," I stated, starting to walk away. I paused. "But, you know, you gotta, like -make it look good," I finished, before running out of the area. "Oh, I'll make it look real good..." Gamora stated.

Rushing towards the edge of the dome, I looked it up and down. "Oookkayyy... Ideas?" I said turning. "How do we get around this?" I jerked my thumb towards the dome.

"Whoa!" I suddenly yelped, as Rocket aimed one of his guns towards me and shot. Dunking, the blast hit the dome and bounced off. I coked an eyebrow at Rocket. "Really?"

"Eh," he shrugged. "Force of habit." He looked up as Groot touched his shoulder.

We were in the Conjunction Arena, of the space station Conjunction, the place I had once hoped to easily get a Pandorian Crystal from my old contact, Lunatik. But due to us crashing, needing new parts for my ship, getting in a fight with Lunatik and Lucy, Rocket betting on my ship and losing, and the fact that the Grandmaster had set this all up to see Gamora and Drax fight..., well it wasn't off to a great start. And now that we were stuck trying to get past the Grandmaster's energy dome that was forcing Gamora and Drax to fight, get my ship back, and stop the Grandmaster... well, this just wasn't my day.

"I am Groot," Groot said, bending down and ripping up the dirt of the arena. "I am Groot."

"Yeeaah," I said. " Underground works too."

Leaping down into what looked like an old abandoned cement- floored hallway, Rocket said, "Alright buddy. Lead us to my ship."

I was quick to react. "You mean _my_ ship? That you gambled on without my permission!?"

Rocket was quick to snap back. "Your ship?! I fixed up over half of that junker! By now, it's more mine than yours!"

"It is not!"

"I am Groot," Groot muttered, walking off, completely ignoring us. "Hey! Wait!"

**...**

The lights flicked as we approached the hallway's intersection. "Where to now Groot?" I muttered. All around us was very dim light and water dripping off of old ripped up or broken pips, with silence echoing in our ears, with the exception of the drip drops of the water and the constant flickering. "I am Groot," Groot said , pointing towards the hallway on the left and walking into it. Rocket and I followed in pursuit. I mentally groaned at the silence. "It's too quiet," I thought as I mentally cursed myself for leaving my Walkman behind. (I had been secretly terrified Lunatik that would had tried to break it, again. ) Trying to pinpoint some noise, I got distracted in listening to the sound to the water. I was secretly humming a song to the beat of the water ,when the lights flickered again and I noticed it. Off to the side in the corner, was a ripped up old black journal. Bending down, I noticed that though it had noticeably been down here for years, with it's water soaked, faded, ripped up, broken lock, and slightly destroyed outside and inside, that you could still barely read the title. It read:

**HJFSFKWFJTDK**

_The journal track record of Subject 89P13  
_

My eyes widened. "What the hell?" I muttered. Rocket turned. "You say something Quill?" "Hu-wha- no," I said, sliding the journal into one of my jacket's pockets and racing to catch up to them. I'll have to save that for later.


	2. Lost, but Found

Their weapons clashed, causing the crowd to go even more wild. Gamora struck before leaning in, pushing her sword against Drax's weapons. "You're not even trying to hurt me," she scowled.

"We are just making it look good," Drax replied. Gamora grunted before pushing harder on her sword, causing Drax to flip , before landing on his feet. The crowd cheered.

"And that bastard up there is gonna figure that out. We need to have a real fight." Gamora swung, barely causing Drax to step back. She was too busy trying to think of a way to make Drax angry enough to fight her, to think about it. Sure, they were fighting now, but that Grandmaster up there was sure to soon to figure it out. "Unless you lost your edge," Gamora said, trying anything. "Afraid you can't handle me?" She got her sword ready, just in case. Nothing.

Losing her patience, she swung, yelling," I'm Thanos' daughter!" She had now manged to get behind Drax and jump him. "I worked for Ronin! Tell me you never wondered if I had something to do with the destruction of your family!" Drax's eyes wided. Pushing up his huge arms, he made her fall off, turning around in a second. Gamora barely had a moment to get up, before Drax swung, trying to kill. His eyes were wide with shock and anger. "I-I didn't..." Gamora barely blocked off Drax's swung. "But uh... Okay, dumb move." She wanted a fight, and now she had got it. But now Drax was trying to kill her. Great.

Silence rang throughout the warehouse where the Milano was stored in, with the exception of the numbing noise of buzzing from the drones, that went back and forth inside and out of the Milano, placing and taking out things. Well, that was until...

Bam!

The door to the warehouse exploded, and Rocket started shooting. "Hey, my ship looks great!" I said excitedly, before dunking from a drone shot. Getting up, I yelled, "Look at all the toys!"

"I am Groot!" Groot said picking up Rocket from his shoulder, and throwing him onto the higher platform. Rocket shot at the drones, knocking them down.

"Yeah. One, I paid for those upgrades so again-aahh!" his rant was interrupted by a drone shooting. Sadly, for me, I knew he was probably going to start it up again. "My ship!"

Groot extended his arm, and grabbed hold of the drone that was shooting at Rocket. Using it like a bat, he swung other drones out of the park.

Rocket crouched down, gun in hand. "Two, if I won that racing ship, you could have the Milano." Hearing a low drone buzzing noise beside him, he turned and fired. "Cause, you know, I'm nice that way. And three, Drax was like-totally unbeatable!" Rocket was up now with his hands in the air, as if it would help in his case.

"Okay, one," I said, raising my gun and icing the floor, to knock out some drones. "Drax paid for the ship, not you. Two, we don't need another ship," I said, as I pointed my gun behind me and blowing up the drones that were sliding behind me. "And, three-aahh!" I yelped as my feet stepped and slipped on the frozen ice, causing me to flip and land on my stomach. The journal slid out of my jacket pocket, and slid across the ice. "No!" I yelped as the drones started scurrying across the the ice towards it. Pushing with my hands and sliding across the ice on my stomach, I quickly slide across the ice towards it.

Grabbing at it, I didn't do anything but make it slid slightly father and open to some random page. "Oooh..."

At the top of the page to at least halfway down was an weird x code thingy, with every scramble of letters starting with x, and the English version underneath. Grapping it, I flipped through the next few pages and they were the same, except with a few pictures and diagrams. Sliding to the edge of ice, I tucked the journal safety into my jacket pocket as I got up. Dusting my self off, I turned on my rocket boots and landed onto my ship. "Like unbeatable is not the same as unbeatable!" I said, making those quot symbols with my fingers. I rushed inside my ship, with Groot and Rocket following in pursuit. "Right, diary keeper," Rocket said before jumping onto his chair. "Aahh!" he yelped as he slipped off and landing on his butt. He raised his arms as in to say," What the heck?!"

"I am Groot," Groot said, leaning on Rocket's chair. Rocket folded his arms.

"What do you mean custom sizing cost extra?!"

"Oooo," I said, moving around in my new seat. " Is this real leather? And hey, I am not!"

Rocket only growled before sitting back in his chair, this time more carefully, and pressing a button. A bomb rang out and destroyed the back of the warehouse. "The energy dome over the area is being projected from the Grandmaster's tower. We just have to take it out," I said.

"Duh, not my first rodeo Slick," Rocket said, his arms spread out in order to control the controls. "Eerrgggg," he muttered underneath his breath as he tried to use the controls. They were stuck in one position it seemed. I was having the same problem as well. Sort of.

"System failures all over the ship," I muttered as I tried to get the guns ready, and noticing that something wasn't right. "Aahh!" I said as something suddenly gave out, giving out smoke everywhere. Shocked, I stood up. Waving my hand trying to clear it, I soon noticed something. "What's this little gizmo that looks like a bomb counting down!?" I said, stating the last part more than questioning it.

"Uh, that would be a bomb counting down," Rocket said sarcastically. Groot looked up from his area, noticing problems as well.

"I am Groot, I am Groot, I am Groot!" he said fanatically.

"Hey, who's controlling my ship!?"

"You mean _my_ ship?!" I said angrily.

"Again, I control Conjunction, I arranged all your upgrades and booby-traps, which means I control your ship. I've been three steps ahead of you since you got here," the Grandmaster stated pungently.

My eyes narrowed. " _That little piece of shit... What else has he done to my ship?"_

"Stay three steps ahead of this!" Rocket said suddenly, before jumping off the ship and landing into a Conjunction racing ship.

"What do you think you're doing?!"

Rocket glanced over at the Grandmaster stating ,"Making my own rules," before turning back towards the controls. The Conjunction racing ship flew up, to land it's self right underneath my ship. He started pushing us up. "As soon as we're over the statue's head, throw down the bombs," Rocket said.

"Roger that." I started collecting the bombs.

The Grandmaster sneered. "You're ruining everything!"

"In three, two, one."

Adding the last bomb Groot found last minute, I kicked them overboard. The bundle landed right between the statue's eyes and stayed.

"No, nobody beats the Grandmaster!"

The bombs exploded, breaking off the head of the statue, breaking the energy dome. Down went the statue's head.

A lone figure on the ground whipped off his hood in alarm , swirling around to face the head. Lifting his one good arm to his ear, he stated," This is Titus. I want all units on Conjunction at the arena now."

Turning, the Grandmaster's eyes widened. Rocket was coming at him full speed. Jumping off the last second, Rocket landed on top of one of the arena walls, while the Grandmaster wasn't that lucky. Screaming at the top of his lungs(and was it just me, or did he sound like a little girl? I smile smudgy at that thought) the Grandmaster's ship crashed landed into the arena, with the Grandmaster flipping out, landing face flat, butt in the air. The Pandorian Crystal landed close by him.

Getting up, he saw that he was in the arena, having landed in the middle of Drax and Gamora, with now hundreds of angry aliens walking towards him. "I propose we postpone this competition."

"To protect this undeserving scum from the angry mob, or to stave off your own defeat?" Drax said, causing the now cowering Grandmaster to flinch. Looking down, Gamora gasped, noticing the Pandorian Crystal. She reached for it, but Drax swiped it first. "Not everything is a competition."

Drax grinned. "I noticed you only say that when you lose."

With the angry mob coming close, the Grandmaster gasped and ran off, to fall over his long cape. Looking up, he saw Titus and the Nova units above him. "This will not stay on Conjunction."

"Unfortunately, neither will we," Gamora said before I beamed them up into the Milano. Titus growled.

...

"Admit it, I could, _would_ , have beaten you,"Gamora stated, her arms crossed, looking to the side . Drax sat in his chair , doing the same. "Think what you like, but now..."

They both reached down for their weapons, which were surprisingly gone. "Huh?"

"I am Groot," Groot said, walking up to them and holding up their weapons.

"Hey, I say we're all winners. This crystal puts us all one step closer to finding the Cosmic Seed," I said smiling, leaning back in my chair. I turned to face Rocket, my smile fading. "What's eating you?"

"It's not everyday you got to give up two rides," Rocket pouted.

"Look, I-I know you put in a lot of work on her," I said, sitting up and reaching over to bring up my backup drive. "So maybe that makes her a little bit yours."

Rocket made a puzzled face, before watching in shock, as his chair turned into his size. He smiled. "Ah, you shouldn't have." He began to press back on his chair . "Hey-how come mine don't recline!" I smiled, rolling my eyes before putting my earphones on and leaning back. Cherry Bomb started to play. Carefully pulling out the book, I opened it to it's first page. It was completely blank, except for the words near the bottom:

**This journal belongs to:**

**Halfworld**

**(written by George Jones)**

**XHIPLXHADG69**

**(XPTFJMNG)**

My eyes widened as I flipped the page. "Ooooo..."

**Subject 89P13**

**Subject 89P13 was obtained on Terra, September 11, 1999.**


	3. Kilt

* * *

**Thanosas Quadrant**   
**Year 10001 B.C**

The being grimaced as the pain filled within his body, but that didn't stop him from squeezing his chair once more. His breathing hitched for a second as his body burned. His soul was dying . And he knew it. But tonight, the prophecy of the white-striped tailed raccoon was to be started. The one the elders had told him about in his early days as a child, back in the small Terran village, around the flames of the fire. The one that would take multiple years to complete and destroy multiple lives, heck multiple universes, but it all would be worth it, once it's blood was ready for harvest. If there really was a Celestial Clock, like the elders had said, in the lost dimension of Time and Power, it would soon be starting to tick.

Throughout the whole Thanoesas Quadrant, silence rang, except for the sound of ticking made as the being tapped his fingers on the arm stand of his throne. He was growing impatient for the news of his prey.

Moments of silence rang throughout the huge, empty stone castle, and the being was slowly starting to fade in and out of the trance of sleep as a human figure slowly made it's way into view outside the huge, circular window, floating throughout space with a space partial helmet , and jet boots. He slowly ventured inside.

"My lord," he said, bowing in front of the being. "My lord Chic-Chic, I have news of the white-striped tailed raccoon prophecy."

"Good." The human servant looked up. "How is the news?"

"All good sir," the human servant said, getting up. "There is to be a slight mix-up though, it is to be adjusted though..."

"What?!" Chic-Chic bellowed, standing up and snatching the human servant by the collar of his shirt faster than lighting. He breathed heavily, causing the human servant to flinch. "A-a-a s-slight m-mix-up sir. But it will still go according to play." Chic-Chic dropped the human servant.

"You better not be lying to me Coart."

"N-no my lord ," Coart said, breathing heavily on the ground. "Never."

Chic-Chic sat down in his throne, pausing to squeeze his arm rests out of pain. "Now, get out of here," he snarled.

Still on the ground, Coart nodded. "Yes, yes sir." Getting up shakily, he soon got hold of his self and flew out the window into the nothingness of space. Lord Chic-Chic growled before leaning back into his throne. As he stayed there, waiting on his soon and painful death, he thought of the centuries to come when he should once again rule all the universes as the most powerful being once again.

**Present**

_"I was tired of my lady, we'd been together too long_   
_Like a worn out recording of a favorite song..."_

_September 15, 1999 5:30pm Xrxkdadak;ln TQQQ N:GO..._  
The first test that was administered on the night we obtained Subject 89P13, is now halfway through. Subject 89P13's screams have now died down to a tired, yet out of pain, whimper as he is injected on the table. Blood levels and heart rate at the normal increase. Now I hover over him with the other scientists, studying the subject as the injections are added. The first test is like all the standardized tests we do in the first few weeks. Slowly, the cancer is injected into every cell, multiplying it by thousands and killing off all the unneeded cell's check points. Now, in two days he shall be ready for the ripping of the unneeded cells , so we may add new ones in it's place.

_So while she lay there sleepin' I read the paper in bed_   
_And in the personal columns, there was this letter I read_   
_If you like piña coladas and getting caught in the rain_   
_If you're not into yoga, if you have half a brain_

_September 17, 1999 4:32pm Xrxkdadak; Iu TQQQ M:PE..._  
The ripping of the cells has been a complete success. All of the new crowding cancer cells and unneeded originals have been completely ripped out with the scalpel. For example, all of the subject's vocal cord cells have been completely removed, leaving only blood in it's place. However, that part was accidentally done slightly sloppy, for now the subject can still make small and weak whimpers as it curls up on it's self in it's new cage. Luckily for us, the eradication of Subject 89O14, the turtle from Terra has been finished up today. His cremation was quick and short. Now Subject 89P13 lives in his small cage, at the bottom of the stacks of cages. It's a good thing he died too, we were running out of room for subjects.

Now the last of the standardized tests can take place: the adding of human vocal cords.

_If you like making love at midnight in the dunes of the cape_   
_Then I'm the love that you've looked for, write to me and escape_   
_I didn't think about my lady, I know that sounds kind of mean_   
_But me and my old lady had fallen into the same old dull routine_   
_So I wrote to the paper, took out a personal ad_   
_And though I'm nobody's poet, I thought it wasn't half bad_

_October 16, 1999 6:00pm Xhsalkresld Ib TQQQ O:RR_  
The poison test has been a success. The newly found substance on Planet V-17 has now been determined as a type of biocide and he has survived. Heart rate and blood levels at normal is suggested that it might perhaps be a type of another planet's Botulinum Toxin. Subject 89P13 has been saying words now, other than stuttering out sounds. Has been quoted to say "Please" , "Stop", "No", and now, "Don't." Now it is required to bring a small plastic guard for subject's mouth in tests. Below I have place a diagram showing where and of what importance the new metal implants that has been recently added.

_Yes, I like piña coladas and getting caught in the rain_   
_I'm not much into health food, I am into champagne_   
_I've got to meet you by tomorrow noon and cut through all this red tape_   
_At a bar called O'Malley's where we'll plan our escape_

_November 10 1999 1:00 am Xgahlkerssa Ir TQQQ I:RR_  
The first electrocution test has been a total success. The subject's brain waves readings was above any others we've ever seen, marking this as thing we'll need to continue. Now being a few months older than when we first got him, he has gotten slightly stronger and have made himself a challenge when it comes to placing him upon the table. Many areas of his fur has burned off to leave red skin, but that is the price to pay when you experiment for science.

_So I waited with high hopes and she walked in the place_   
_I knew her smile in an instant, I knew the curve of her face_   
_It was my own lovely lady and she said, "Aw, it's you."_   
_Then we laughed for a moment and I said, "I never knew."_   
_That you like piña coladas and gettin' caught in the rain_   
_And the feel of the ocean and the taste of champagne_

_November 16 1999 12:00pm Xqahlkerssa Ib TQQQ L:RR_  
Today there was a slight disturbance. It felt as if we were being watched. It lasted however only a minute, but caused us fear for the rest of the day. It was (the paper was burned here) , the day I was to perform another electrocution test on Subject 89P13. It was well, odd.  
It had started out normal, with Rodrick out in the halls where the cages were lined. He, of course, laid down his clipboard on top of the cage. The three month old Terran mammal was not that easy to get out. After pulling on his rubber gloves he unlocked the cage, and reached in slowly. The small subject whimpered, uncurling it's self and hissed at the hands, before sinking into the far corner of the extra small cage. He was easy to grab however, and soon Rodrick was carrying the struggling Subject 89P13. That's when it started. It felt as if we were being watched. First Rodrick felt it, causing him to pause and turn behind him, but as he entered the lab, we all felt it. Something unnerving was watching us. It felt old and young, and also strangely powerful. It felt as if the eyes were staring at our necks, going down into our soul. That was it, till later a stray Nova shot hit the ship. My crush, Elizabeth almost died in all the chaos. The test was performed however, and it went very smoothly.

_If you like making love at midnight in the dunes on the cape_   
_You're the lady I've looked for, come with me and escape_   
_If you like piña coladas and getting caught in the rain_   
_If you're not into yoga, if you have half a brain_

_January 1 2000 1:00pm Xiasdlkeskrds I UAAA I:RR_  
The last metal implant has been installed in the back of Subject 89P13. It is now a very sore area, making us curious how the brain waves in tomorrow's electrocution will differ. Right now the subject is resting in it's cage. The cages have slightly became emptier. Last night Subject 789U34 died. His eradication shall take place two days from now. Down below I've labeled more things we have discovered by placing Subject 89P13 in Hyudictic Fluid.

_If you like making love at midnight in the dunes on the cape_   
_Then I'm the love that you've looked for, write to me and escape_   
_Yes I like piña coladas and getting caught in the rain_   
_I'm not much into health food, I am into champagne_   
_I've got to meet you by tomorrow noon and cut through all this red tape..._

Slowly taking off my earphones, I sighed. Putting them over to the side, I closed the journal with my thumb in it as a bookmark, and begun rubbing the cover absentmindedly. "Huhhhh...," I whispered mindlessly. The cover was scratchy. A scratchy cover to a seemingly innocent looking journal. But it wasn't. I took another sip of coffee.  
It had been two days since the Conjunction Grandmaster scene, and we had just recently gotten another location of a Pandorian Crystal from the Collector. It was early morning while I sat in the Milano's main piloting area alone, the only sound being of the engine.  
Despite it's small size, I was only a near one-fourth done with reading the journal. You would think, due to it's small size and the fact that half of the page was taken up by some X code thingy, that it would have been a fast read, but looks were apparently misleading. I took another small sip of coffee before looking back down at the journal.  
It's contents alone, the torture they inflected, made me want to go rescue the poor little guy, but what really disturbed me, was the way they described him _to_ be. A genetically altered animal weapon. Torture was bad enough sure, but tortured into the perfectly made weapon of destruction for the wrong side, in total spite, was frightening. Taking one last sip of my coffee, I laid it down on the arm of my chair and leaned back. I was going to need to confront the others about this.

**...**

Gamora found herself once more drinking the bitter tasting liquid that Quill had called coffee that morning. She disliked the taste, yet every morning she found herself up against the island in the kitchen, before anyone else would even think about waking up, drinking it. Perhaps it was the quietness, not the coffee, that made her do this everyday. It wasn't that she despised any of her teammates or the noises they may make( however to know that she should never wake up to the sound of one of Rocket's stray grenades going off due to someone tripping over it, would be nice) but the fact that the quietness proved that everything right then and there was peaceful. Instead to her once living alongside enemies, she now lived with friends, or if she dare say it, family. No unneeded killing, no pressure. Peaceful. It almost made the coffee taste less bitter.

Gamora looked up to the sound of someone walking down the hallway. "Hey Gamora," I said, beaming. Gamora smiled and waved slightly. Walking over into the kitchen, I started making myself a cup of coffee. "I need to tell you about something," I said, my back turned as I poured in the right amount of water. Gamora hummed, proving that she was listening. Turning to face her, I finished pouring the water. "Actually, I was kinda hoping to tell everyone at once however; but -"

"Tell us what Quill?" Drax said walking in. I laid down my mug onto the counter and pulled out the journal. "This."

Drax sat down.

"A journal?" Gamora stated.

I shook my head. "Not just any journal. When you guys were up in the area, Groot, Rocket, and I were underground, in some sort of sewer. I found this, which is apparently some scientist's recordings on torturing an animal somewhere called Halfworld." I handed over the journal to Drax. "The experiments themselves are awful, torturing a poor little baby creature just taken away from his mother, in just plain spite, but what the experiments did to the creature, well..."

Drax slowly flipped through the journal. "This sounds dishonorable Quill. To take one's baby away, with it not even being a month old. "

"What did they do?"

I looked back up at Gamora. "Different things. Like they turned him cybernetic for instance. The sick thing is, was that they used the cybernetics to give him electric shocks, burning him to a crisp, alive."

Drax handed the journal over to Gamora, with a scowl on his face. Gamora flipped through it, careful not to damage the already messed up pages anymore.

"They also plan to make him into a weapon, just for the fun of it. " Gamora passed me back the book. "We need to stop them, before they succeed. To torture a creature just for the spite of it is bad enough, however; torturing him into a mass weapon of destruction for fun is even worse. I think, due to each entry is written as though the scientist is shocked he is still alive later on in the journal, that there's a small chance he's still alive. " I paused, hearing footsteps coming.  
"Yes, everyone noticed it," Rocket said, scratching his head ,as he and Groot walked in.  
" I think we need to find him," I finished . Rocket paused upon seeing the journal I held. His nose twitched. "Where the flarking hell-"

"In the Conjunction sewer. It's about some Subject 89P13, and I think we should go rescue him-"

"No."

I paused.

"Why not?"

Rocket's whole body was tense now, all of his fur was on it's end. Groot wore a worried expression on his face, and was slowly making his way towards Rocket. I raised an eyebrow. _"What was going on?"_

A moment of silence rang, Rocket's eye was slightly twitching, as if there was an argument going on in his mind about something he wasn't sure if he should expose. Finally, with all eyes upon him and not seeing a way out of this, he broke:

"Be-Because that's me, you bastards!"

"What?!" I reeled in shock.

"Because that was me!" Rocket said, swiping the journal out of my hands. I didn't feel it, I couldn't feel it. I felt numb.

Rocket flipped through the pages, looking at it with a combined mixture of hatred, anger, and fear . I hardly took notice, I still felt was numb. Rocket was Subject 89P13? I couldn't believe it. Yes, we knew something about a torturous science facility, due to that fateful night on Knowhere. Rocket's drunken speech made it seem as though time it self, had paused. _"I didn't ask to get made. I didn't ask to be torn apart and put back together over and over and turned into some little monster."_ It had made us all had unintentionally given us a silver of his past, until then, we had not a silver of knowledge about his past. It hadn't given us much to go on, but it did tell us that in one part of his life, Rocket had been held in some torturous science facility. Halfworld..., it wasn't just some torturous science facility...

Okay, granted, it was some torturous science facility, but what they did, to know what they did, just for fun, just in boredom, made me want to go hunt down every last one of them ,when it was just some poor little guy I didn't know. But to Rocket...

 _"What they did,"_ I thought as what I learned flashed through my mind _, "Rocket has got to know..."_

"Rocket," I said worriedly, causing the raccoon to look up from the journal flipping. "You have to know what they did to you, you need to know-"

Rocket looked up, eyes as set as stone. "No."

"Rocket, I'm not even one-fourth done with it yet, but you got to know-"

"No. I don't want to know, and I don't want you to know either." He started ripping up the journal with his claws furiously, not leaving one piece unharmed.

"Rocket no!" I said, "You need to know, it's important!" But it was too late. Little did I know, that as I took a step closer to him, a slice of a page of the journal, covered in the x code, hit another piece in the air , and slid underneath the counter.

With a pile of paper underneath him, Rocket stormed off. A moment of silence slowly passed, while the others watched as I rushed over to the counter hurriedly, searching for a pen and a slice of paper, any piece of paper at this point.

"What does he need to know?" Gamora finally asked, breaking the silence.  
"What the experiments did to him! It is stated, that somehow, accidentally, that they semi-humanlized him!" I said brushing off some junk. Finally I found a piece of paper, a small slice left over from a small pad of paper. I started scribbling down numbers.

"What did they semi-humanlize?" Gamora asked.

"Different aspects of him!" I said turning, "Like his age for instance. According to the journal, they somehow , during the experiments, they adjusted his lifespan to a Terran's! And if they obtained him in 1999, in the month of his birth..."

"He'll be sixteen years old!" Gamora realized.

"Exactly! In Terran years, he'll be considered a teen!"

"So... all this time... we've been fighting alongside a...," Gamora started.

"A kid," I finish.

"I am Groot!" Groot said, looking stunned. There was a moment of silence as the blow hit us.

"So, he is a kilt?"

We all turned to look at Drax, who had been quiet throughout. "A what?"

"A kilt. On my home planet, we have no subcategories , young ones are called kilts. So, Rocket is a young kilt?"

Gamora and I nodded.  
"But we need to tell him. He has got to know. "

**...**

It was mid-morning in the main piloting room, where Rocket steered alone, the only sound being of the engine. Gripping the controls tightly, he growled. He couldn't believe it. They knew. After all the work he had put into it, creating the appearance of a trigger happy, aggressive creature to hide the subject, the monster, blocking out the stares and labels, and yet they had found out what he really was. A monster. A freak.

He still, well how could he forget? remembered the years before he had met the Guardians. Living out in the streets, having no home, constantly being reminded of what he was, a freak. He still remembered the night he was caught by a gridlock, a giant green lizard looking creature, like a komodo dragon perhaps, with it's tongue constantly sticking out, due to being blind in the eyes, and not eaten because he was too much of a freak. Of course, he didn't want to get eaten, but the concept of it all, still stung. By the time he had meet the Guardians, he had hardened, and treated them like he would anyone, with a mask of anger and aggression. But after the Ronan fiasco, the act was harder to keep. All he could think to do was to continue to hide under the mask, because that was how they saw him. They saw him as a strong willed, agrressive, bite-your-fingers-off-if-you-tried-to-pet-him, and slightly psychotic. For they didn't recruit a broken scared experiment, terrified of going back to that hell of a place , but a trigger happy, not caring, doesn't give a dam, Rocket. But that didn't stop the nightmares.

The nightmares of his past, of his creation. Or worse , his future. Dreams often came to, if he dared to say it, his family, his first ever real group of friends other than Groot, finding out what he really was and leaving him.  
And now they knew. They knew of what he was. A monster. A freak.

Slowly walking down the hallway to the Milano's main piloting room so Rocket couldn't hear me, I paused hearing him growl. Starting up again, I placed a huge smile on my face. Inside, Rocket seemed to be in his own world. His eyes glazed, hands tightening, did he even realize that the Milano was on autopilot? Guess not. Glad it was. I frowned. He had to know. He need to know. Placing a smile once more on my face, I started forward. Here goes nothing...

**...**

**Terra**

**Present, 8:39pm**

Harry Potter shivered once more before finally giving up on the glass and dropping it on the cold leafy ground, and pulled the blanket tighter around him. He was on watch, having refused Hermione's offer to keep watch, telling her to go to bed. Silence rang. He was now growing to a point to taking out the Marauder's Map, so to watch Ginny's dot for a while, before remembering that it was the Christmas holidays and she would be back at the Burrow.  
A bright blue light started to shine, causing him to look up. The light, whatever the source, was moving soundlessly, drifting towards him. At first it seemed like a little ball but it seemed to grow as the light got stronger. Walking into view, it revealed it's self to be a blue-white raccoon, reminding Harry slightly of the one he and Ron had chased while Ron was still with them.

...

It was near the camp, seemingly taking a break from a long journey or something, just digging around in the ground. They had hid behind a tree rather close by it, causing it to look up as Ron accidentally stepped on a twig. They were looking for something to eat, and while a raccoon wasn't a ideal dinner to eat compared to a rabbit or such, it was the only thing they had found that day so far.

Ron slowly pulled out his wand, while I walked swiftly around him and threw a spell. Hitting the ground besides it, it caused the raccoon to start scurrying away. They had chased after it , spells sounding loud in the forest silence.

Slowing down, Ron threw one last spell, missing the raccoon, but almost hitting Harry. Harry looked shocked for a second before smiling, Ron chuckled. Walking slightly closer to Ron, Harry threw a spell near him, grinning. Smiling, Ron started after him.

They had continued on, circling each other around a tree, before Ron threw the finale spell, almost slamming Harry into a tree, no longer playing. The chase ended , with them walking back to the tent.

...

Sliding off the blanket, Harry stood up, staring at it with wonder. He had no impulse to call Hermine, for he knew , he would have staked his life on it, that she had come for him, and him alone.

She started to slowly walk off. For one trembling second he hesitated. Caution murmured it could be a trick, a lure, a trap. But instinct, overwhelming instinct, told him that this was not Dark Magic. He set off in pursuit.

Snow crunched beneath his feet, but the raccoon made not a noise as she was nothing but light. Slowly, she led him to a small , frozen pool, and vanished. Now fear came: Her presence had meant safety.

 _"Lumos!"_ he whispered.

Slowly, hearing the creaking of the ice below him, Harry made his way to where the raccoon had stood. He stood there for a second, listening to the sounds of the forest, to distant crackles of twigs, soft swishes of snow. Was he about to be attacked? Had she enticed him into an ambush? Was he imagining that somebody stood beyond the reach of the wandlight, watching him?

He held the wand higher. Nobody ran out at him, no flash of green light suddenly burst from behind a tree. Why, then, had she led him to this spot?

Slowly moving his wand slightly, something below him dimly gleamed. Bending down, he brushed off the excise snow, to see a great silver cross...

Angling the wand so as to flood the bottom of the pool with as much light as possible, his heart skipped into his mouth. A glint of deep red... It was a sword with glittering rubies in its hilt... The sword of Gryffindor was lying at the bottom of the forest pool.

Barely breathing, he glanced around him. How was this possible? Again he directed the wand at the surroundings, for a human outline, the glint of an eye. Nothing. How could it have come to be lying in a forest pool, this close to the place where they were camping?

Returning his attention to the sword, Harry pointed his wand at it and murmured _, "Accio Sword."_

Nothing. He didn't expect it move much anyway. If it was to be that easy, why not have the sword laid itself upon the ground for him to pick up, instead of the depths of a frozen pool?

Standing up, he waved his wand around in a circle murmuring, _"Diffindo."_

The ice cracked, melting at the touch of the water beneath, creating a small hole for Harry.

Quickly stepping off the pool, Harry started to remove his layers of clothings. He was shivering now, but continued on till he stood there in his underwear, barefoot in the snow. Dang, it was cold.

Slowly, he made his way back across the ice towards the hole, laying down his wand besides it. He started to go in, pausing at how cold it was. Breathing deeply, he gathered all of his courage, and dived.

He pushed through the cold water, his hands grasping out for the sword. The cold was agony: it was like fire.

Pushing against the cold, his fingers closed around the hilt.

All of a sudden, something closed tight around his neck. He thought water weeds, even though none had brushed against him inwards, and raised his free hand. It was not a weed: The chain of the Horcrux had tightened and was quickly constricting his windpipe. It wanted to live.

Harry thrashed about wildly, trying to push himself back to the surface, but merely propelled himself underneath the still frozen ice. He was suffocating, as he fought, losing due to his frozen fingers unable to loosen it. Little lights started to appear... he was going to drown... he couldn't stop it... the thing he felt around him must surely be death...

Gasping for air, Harry felt his self be pulled out of the water, and pulled up against a large rock. Seconds passed as he just gasped for air, before he reached out for his glasses.

"Hermione?" he asked, his glasses fogged due to the cold.  
"Are-you- _mental_?" a panting voice replied.  
His glasses had unfogged now, and Ron stood before him, fully dressed but drenched to the skin, his hair plastered to his face, the sword of Gryffindor in one hand and the Horcurx dangling from its broken chain in the other.

"Why the _hell_ ," panted Ron, holding up the Horcurx, which swung backward and forward on its shorten chain in some parody of hypnosis, "didn't you take this thing off before you dived?"

Harry couldn't answer. Finally he said, " It was y-you?" his voice weaker than usual due to his near-strangulation.

"Well, yeah."

"Y-you cast that raccoon?" Harry said, gaining enough strength to pull on his pants.

"What? No, of course not! I thought perhaps it was Hermione's doing!"

Harry shook his head rapidly. "No, hers is an otter."

"Oh yeah. Thought it looked different." Ron held out his hands to make it look like he was holding an imagery ball. "It was a big pile of fur."

Harry nodded rapidly, pulling on the rest of his clothes. "How come you're here?"

Ron's face slightly whitened, showing that apparently Ron had hoped that this point would come up later, if at all.

"Well, I've-you know-I've come back. If-" He cleared his throat. "You know. You still want me."

There was a pause, in which the subject of Ron's departure seemed to rise like a wall between them. Yet he was here. He had returned. He had just saved Harry's life.

Harry motioned at Ron's hand that was clutching the sword of Gryffindor. "You got it."

Ron looked down at his hands. He seemed momentarily surprised to see the things he was holding. He nodded. "Yeah, I got it." He held up the sword for Harry's inspection. "That's why you jumped in, right?"

"Yeah," Harry said,"But I don't understand. How did you get here? How did you find us?"

"Long story," said Ron. "I've been looking for you for hours, it's a big forest, isn't it? And I was just thinking I'd have to kip under a tree and wait for morning, when I saw that raccoon coming and you following."

"You didn't see anyone else?"

"No, I-" Ron stopped, hesitating for a second, glancing at two trees growing close together some yards away. "I did think I saw something move over there, but I was running to the pool, because you'd gone in and you hadn't come up, so I wasn't going to make a detour to-hey!"

Harry was already hurrying to the place Ron had indicated. The two oaks grew close together; there was a gap of only a few inches between the trunks at eye level, an ideal place to see but not be seen.

The ground around the roots, however, was free of snow, and he could see no sign of footprints.

"Anything there?" Ron called.

"No," Harry said, turning and making his way back to Ron.

Ron looked down at the ornate silver sword, its rubied hilt glinting a little in the light from Hermione's wand. "You reckon this is the real one though?"

"One way to find out, isn't there?" Harry said, glancing at the Horcrux swinging and twitching slightly from Ron's hand. It knew of the sword's presence, one of the few things that coud kill it. Now was not the time for long discussions; now was the moment to destroy the locket once and for all. Walking closer towards Ron, Harry took the locket.

"Hey, what are you-," Ron stopped, realizing as Harry placed it upon the rock he had been pulled up on.

"Come here," Harry said. When Ron offered the sword, he shook his head. "It's got to be you."

"Me," Ron said, looking shocked. "Why?"

"Because you got the sword out of the pool. I think it's supposed to be you."

He was not being kind or generous. As certainly as he had known that the raccoon was benign, he knew that Ron had to be the one to wield the sword. Dumbledore had at least taught Harry something about certain kinds of magic, of the incalculable power of certain acts.

"I'm going to open it," Harry said, " and you stab it. Straightaway, okay? Because whatever's in there will put up a fight. The bit of Riddle in the diary tried to kill me."  
"How are you going to open it?" Ron asked. He looked terrified.

"I'm going to ask it to open, using Pareltongue." It came so easy to him the answer, so readily, that it made him think that perhaps he had always known it deep down:Perhaps it had taken his recent encounter with Nagini to make him realize it.

"No!" Ron said, snapping Harry out of his thoughts. "No, don't open it! I'm serious!"

"Why not? Let's get rid of the damn thing, it's been months-"

"I can't Harry," Ron interrupted,"I'm serious-you do it-"

"But why?"

"Because that thing's bad for me!" Ron said, backing away from the locket on the rock. " I'm not making excuses, Harry, for what I was like, but it affects me worse than it affected you and Hermione, I can't handle it! It made me think stuff-stuff I was thinking anyway, but it made everything worse, I can't explain it, and then I'd take it off and I'd get my head on straight again, and then I''d have to put the effing thing back on-I can't do it Harry!"

"You can do it, you've got the sword, I know it's supposed to be you who uses it. Please, just get rid of it, Ron."

The sound of his name seemed to act like a stimulant. Ron swallowed, then breathing in deeply walked back towards the rock. "Tell me when," he croaked.  
"On three," Harry said, looking back down at the locket and narrowing his eyes, the contents of the locket rattled like some terrified child. It would have been easy to pity it, except for what it was.

"One...two...three... _open."_

The last word came as a hiss and a snarl and the golden doors of the locket swung wide with a little click.

 _"I have seen your heart, and it is mine,"_ a voice hissed out of the Horcrux as a gigantic swarm of grotesque swirling darkness burst out, pushing Ron backwards to the ground.

"Don't listen to it," Harry yelled harshly. "Stab it!"

_"I have seen your dreams, Ronald Weasley, and I have seen your fears. All you desire is possible, but all that you dread is possible..."_

"Stab!" Harry shouted, barely audible over the loud noises coming from the Horcrux.

_"Least loved, always, by the mother who crave a daughter...Least loved now, by the girl who prefers your friend... Second best, always eternally overshadowed..."_

Light started forming in the blackness, to slowly form into the forms of Harry and Hermione. Harry snatched his fingers away from the locket as it burned, suddenly, white-hot.

"Ron!" he shouted, but the Riddle-Harry was now speaking with Harry's voice and Ron was gazing, mesmerized , into its face.  
 _"We were better without you, happier without you, glad of your absence...Why return...We laughed at your stupidiy, your cowardice,your presumption-"_

 _"Presumption!"_ echoed the Riddle-Hermione, who was more beautiful and yet more terrible than the real Hermione. She swayed, cackling, before Ron, who looked horrified yet transfixed, the sword hanging pointlessly at his side. _"Who could look at you, who would ever look at you, beside Harry Potter? What have you ever done, compared with the Chosen One? What are you, compared with the Boy Who Lived?"_

"Ron, stab it, STAB IT!" Harry yelled, but Ron didn't move.

 _"Your own mother confessed,"_ sneered Riddle-Harry, while Riddle-Hermione jeered, _"that she would have preferred me as a son, would be glad to exchange..."_

 _"Who wouldn't prefer him, what woman would take you, you are nothing, nothing to him,"_ crooned Riddle-Hermione , and she stretched like a snake and entwined herself around Riddle-Harry, wrapping him in a close embrace:Their lips met.

On the ground in front of them, Ron's face filled with anguish.

"Do it Ron!" Harry yelled.

He raised the sword high, his arms shaking before he started running at it, and Harry thought he saw a trace of scarlet in his eyes as Ron glanced his way.  
The sword flashed:plunged, there was a clang of metal and a long drawn-out whisper of a scream.

The monstrous versions of himself and Hermione were gone: There was only Ron, sitting down on his knees, the sword held slackly in his hand, breathing deeply.

Slowly Harry walked back to him, hardly knowing what to say or do. Ron's eyes were no longer red at all, but their normal blue and also wet. He was also shaking, but not, Harry realized, from cold.

Harry knelt down beside Ron, and placed a hand cautiously on his shoulder. He took it as a good sign that Ron did not throw it off.

"After you left," he said in a low voice," she cried for a week. Probably longer, only she didn't want me to see. There were loads of nights when we never even spoke to each other. " There was a pause.

"She's like my sister," he went on. "I love her like a sister and I reckon she feels the same way about me. It's always been like that. I thought you knew."

Ron did not respond, but turned his face away from Harry and wiped his nose noisily on his sleeve. Harry got to his feet again and walked to where Ron's enormous rucksack lay yards away, discarded as Ron had run toward the pool to save Harry from drowning. He hoisted it onto his own back and walked back to Ron, who had clambered to his feet, eyes bloodshot but otherwise composed.

"I'm sorry," he said in a thick voice. "I'm sorry I left. I know I was a- a-"

He looked around at the darkness, as if hoping a bad enough word would swoop down upon him and claim him.

"You've sort of made up for it tonight,"Harry said,"Getting the sword. Finishing off the Horcrux. Saving my life."

"That makes me sound a lot cooler than I was," Ron mumbled.

"Stuff like that always sounds cooler than it really was," Harry said smiling gently,"I've been trying to tell you that for years."

The walk through the dark forest with the raccoon may had seemed lengthy, but with Ron by his side, the journey back seemed to take a surprisingly short time. Harry couldn't wait to wake Hermione, and it was with quickening excitement that he raced up the hill towards it, Ron lagging a little behind him.  
Hermione was fast asleep, curled up under her blankets, and did not move until Harry had said her name several times.

_"Hermione!"_

There was the sound of her stirring inside, then moments later, she exited the tent.

"What's wrong Harry? Are you alright?"

"It's okay, everything's fine. More than fine. I'm great. There's someone here."

"What do you mean? Who-?"

She noticed Ron, who stood there behind Harry, holding the sword and dripping wet. Her eyes widened , and like a sleepwalker, she moved towards him. She stopped right in front of him, her lips slightly parted, her eyes wide. Ron gave a weak, hopeful smile and half raised his arms.

Hermione launched herself forward and started punching every inch of him that she could reach.

"Ouch-ow-gerroff! What the-Hermione-OW!"

"You-complete- _arse_ -Ronald-Weasley!"

Little did they realize, that off in the corner, hardly see able in the darkness, a small female raccoon was watching them. She had been watching them for awhile, taking a break from the long journey she was undertaking. Smiling slightly, she saluted them before turning away, wishing them the best of luck.

"You-crawl-back-here-after-weeks-and-weeks-oh, _where's my wand?!"_

Especially for that Ron fellow...

**...**

**Back on the Milano...**

It was dark. Not only outside, but inside as well as Drax made his way around the twists and turns to Rocket's chambers. He slowly came to a pause at the doorway, only for a second, to listen to Rocket's soft breathing.

Making his way towards Rocket, Drax smiled softly. "Kilt," he thought," He's a kilt..."

He could see Rocket as a kilt, with all of his childish facial expressions he made and immature acts. A young child. A kilt. "He is the same age my daughter was... no, don't think of that!" he thought, shaking his head. They had been trying all day, with failure, to tell the young kilt. But no matter what they tried, Rocket found a way to avoid. Peter seemed to be at the end of his rod...

Now having made his way, Drax looked down at Rocket, who was fast asleep, but due to kicking off his covers, was shivering violently. Now knowing what Rocket had been through, Drax frowned. He had been experimented on-tortured with just plain spite, and had been just a baby at the time... Taken away from his mother just to get pain no one deserved, well no one but maybe Thanos...

Slowly pulling the heavy covers back over Rocket, Drax made up his mind, swearing to his self that he would watch over Rocket. Rocket was his kilt.

Smiling in his sleep, Rocket snuggled in deeper into the covers. Drax smiled before turning to go, pausing right in mid-turn. His eyes widened. Quill, Gamora, and Groot were all standing in the doorway, smiling with amusement. "What?"

Peter shook his head, before they all started to headed off.

Moments later Rocket started tossing and turning in his sleep. "No, no, no," he whimpered.

_"The blood of the creature..."_

_"One shall live, while the other dies, neither_ _can live while the other survives..._

_"No, please," the scientist begged, as that monster breathed down his neck. "Then let me..."_

_"The creature hated the pain the most, the kind that came from that man..."_

_"The most feared death..."_

_"The most deadly of torture..."_

_"It's death will be the beginning of the downfall of our kind..."_

_"The universe shall then be plunged into eternal darkness..._

Rocket gasped, sitting up in bed, covered in sweat. Moments of silence passed as Rocket breathed in heavily, trying to calm down. "It was all just a dream...It was all just a dream..." he muttered for a few seconds trying to convince himself, before laying back down.

Little did he know that as he was falling back asleep, one strand of his fur deep in the strip of his tail, was slowly turning white...


	4. Purple Lightning

**Rocket's POV:**

Flark. My tail was caught up in the covers, ...again. Due to the Halfworld scientists so graciously placing metal implants with a lovely 'no return' policy, into my back, making it sensitive to touch, I often found myself sleeping on my stomach. However, this caused problems as well:

As long as I can remember, I've never had complete control of my tail, the useless appendage, while I was asleep. Many times, I have woken up to find myself caught up in my covers, taking minutes to slowly untwine my appendage, often pausing due to the sharp pain that would shoot up my spine, again due to the Halfworlder's _gentle_ handling. Due to them grabbing at it and pulling me along by my tail to and from experiments so many times as I would try so desperately to escape (it was the easiest thing to grasp) , it had made it extremely sensitive in the nerves, burning every time something pulled on it. Unluckily for me, the Guardians tended to do the same thing, not on the same standards of course, but to get my attention about something unimportant or when speaking to me, pulling me up as I tried to walk away . It would even happen accidentally, like the time we went to that one planet with that loose board in the convent store we so happened to go in, catching hold of my tail, pulling as I walked away unknowingly.

I breathed in deeply. "Here we go," I thought, before slowly starting. "Ouch! Ow, ow!" I thought shrinking into myself each time the tail was pulled. Finally it was almost under all the blankets, there was only one left. "Yeesh, how many blankets did I cover myself with?" Suddenly I paused, not even noticing the stinging shooting up my back. I remembered now. Late last night, I had felt as if I had been tucked in by someone, smiling as the feeling of being snuggled into the warmness of the covers and blankets arrived. Who the hell did that?

"They feel sorry for me," I realized, eyes widening. "They learned of what I am, and feel sorry for me."

I pulled in my tail, not pausing from the pain. Great. That's all I need. For them to feel sorry for me, before they force me away. Pulling off my covers in haste, I jumped off.

...

Walking down the hall, I paused, slowly poking my head in the kitchen, to see everyone else there. Slowly, I pulled out my head, and quickly passed the doorway. I didn't want to hear it.

All day yesterday, after Quill had shown off that dang journal, they had been following me around, trying to trap me in some elaborately stupid scheme to tell me something 'important'. Probably something happened that they just _had_ to tell me in there, didn't think they were the group of people to chase one down to give them that despite him being a freak that they still 'loved' him crap. Even though I knew that they were much more open minded than most and not heartless , why would they think that way about something like me? A monster like me? A freak. I didn't want to hear it right now. I couldn't hear it right now.

Walking into the Milano's main piloting room, I plopped myself onto my seat and sighed. I knew I would have to face them sooner or later, but I wanted to first be prepared for when they forced me away. I wasn't. "Now where was my was my Mantlo?" I thought, looking around the area. I knew I had left it in here somewhere. I wanted to distract myself right now. I needed a way out of here right now. The Mantlo was my newest weapon, a small bomb that would be able to destroy multiple small moons. Not that I was planing to do that...

I just needed something to do. Something to distract me. To take it apart by wire by wire to see what it might do. To tear apart machines and screw things in to distract and turn time around in the clock. It may be a quirk, but hey it worked.

Nothing. I decided to shrug it off, to believe that I must've left it in some other room(I wasn't exactly the neatest of people), and started on my search for my Taileo. I got up, even looking under my chair. Nothing. My ten seconds till explode bombs, my Bautisata grenades, my Highdro, and my plasma blaster. Nothing. I stood up and growled. Apparently they had came up with some elaborate scheme that wasn't stupid.

Scowling, I turned and headed towards the kitchen, promising myself that I would kill whoever did it. Thinking of yesterday's oddness... Drax had strangely been the oddest of them all...it was something I didn't expect from him...my scowl deepened...

I bet it was Drax...

Peter yawned. "But do you really think it'll work?" he asked, his hand still around the handle of his coffee mug, having laid it down moments ago. Gamora walked over to the table, her arms crossed. But before she could say anything...

"Alright, which one you idiots stole all of my weapons?!" I exclaimed, arms crossed. Peter yawned.

"We had to get your attention somehow Rocket."

I raised an eyebrow. They all looked exhausted. I growled silently, my left eye fidgeting slightly. _They had spent the whole night hiding my weapons to try to tell me something?_ Fine, I'll let them talk. "What?"

Peter stood up. "There's something we need to tell you that was in that journal. You need to know."

There was a pause . "Fine. What?"

"They did different things to you Rocket. Like they semi-humanlized different aspects of you.I wasn't even one-fourth done, and yet they mention that somehow ,accidentally they pulled and fitted you to fit a Terran! Take your lifespan, for instance. They extended your lifespan to fit like a Terran's,.. like mine! We did the math, and you're sixteen!"

There was a moment of silence.

My eyes slightly widened, not big enough for them to notice ,of course. Wow, that wasn't what I had expected at all. Instead of being suddenly told what I already knew, that I was a monster, a freak, before being pushed away. But that wasn't what happened at all..To be told that I was half Terran...

"Really?" I said, trying to mask over my actual curiosity. They all nodded. I waited for a second. A minute. A minute of silence passed, as I waited for them to push me away. Nothing. Perhaps...

Suddenly a beeping went off. "What the-?" I said, as Quill leaped up, and raced past me towards the Milano's main piloting room. The others followed in pursuit. I followed slowly however, still slightly stunned.

"It's the alarm I placed, to go off whenever we got to the new coordinates the Collector gave us!" Quill said, sitting down in his chair and studying the new planet. "Planet looks harmless enough."

"So did the last place the Collector sent us," Gamora said, sitting down in her chair."Until it wasn't."

"I am Groot."

Drax sat down in his chair, raising up his screen. "We are being followed."

I was halfway up the ladder, when I paused. There was something slightly setting off glowing red light caught behind the ladder. "Huh, what's that," I thought, reaching for it.

"Lose them?"

"Nah. Let's get a look at them first."

But by then, those words that had been uttered, were like uneasy waves to me, underneath the main piloting area, passing through unknowingly. Now holding the object, a small tracking device, it glowed softly in my paw, having all of my attention. I closed my paw softly.

Not too far away, following behind the Milano above the beautiful blue atmosphere of the plant, flew a lone Nova ship.

"These so called 'Guardians' are gonna mess up sooner or later. And when they do, I'm gonna throw them all in Kyln prison," Titus growled, not noticing the Milano's beacon disappearing on his screen. Looking at it, he did a double take. "Hey, where'd they go?" Glancing up, his eyes widened, as he hurriedly swirled past asteroids.

After getting through a wall of them, he gasped, upon seeing the Milano. "Are they nuts?!"

Quill, upon learning that someone was following us, had turned the Milano upside down. Looking up, they could see each other in the cockpit . Peter saluted him. "How's it going?"

Turning right side up, the Milano hit the Nova ship, causing it to go down.

"You lowlifes won't get away with this." the lone Nova Crops member muttered, as he struggled to get back control of his ship, who was piloting it's self downwards into the atmosphere.

Gamora turned back to face Quill. "You really want to provoke that space cop again, Quill?"

"The real question is, how did Titus follow us all the way from Conjunction."

That was when I decided to poke out my head. "Mighta had something to do with this tracker." I smashed it. "Oops."

"I do not believe that was an accident," Drax said.

...

Upon touching the ground and landing, the Milano's drawbridge slowly went down. "Alright, we're looking for one large Pandorian Crystal. Now it should stick out like a sore thumb in all this leafy green stuff..." Quill said, as he was walking down the drawbridge, everyone else following . Peter turned to face me, who in return turn my head to the side to look at our surroundings, not even noticing that Peter was staring at me. It was true. There was leafy green stuff all around us.

Peter frowned. "The poor guy's been through so much in the past few hours. I don't know how I'd react if I was told that I was still a kid..." To him, I had taken it very well, unusually well. "Or that my friends found a journal of my past I was so trying to keep.."

It had occurred to Peter that, once upon learning that Rocket was Subject 89P13, that he wouldn't want them to know about his past, thinking of his self as a freak or monster, or worse, that they would know that upon learning about it. Heck, the only time he ever opened up about it was when he drunk that one time on Knowhere...

Peter shook his head, getting rid of the thought, before looking back at me, head still turned. "Millions of thoughts must be flowing through that brain..."

But he still had needed to know the truth.

Walking onto the lush green grass, Peter nodded, deciding that he would leave Rocket alone when it came to picking and teasing around for awhile. It was the best thing he could do to help right now.

So he turned on Groot instead.

"So what do you think, big guy," Peter said, turning around to face Groot, " See any long lost relatives? Some missing branches from the family tree?" He gestured towards all the surrounding trees.

"I am Groot," Groot said, before walking away,shudders sagged, hurt. Nope. Not on my watch.

"Hey, lay off of Groot," I said rushing over to Quill.

"Oh, come on, I'm just kidding around. Doesn't understand over half of what I say anyway."

"No one understands most of what you say, but that's not the point! He's sensitive," I said, hesitating as I said the last sentence.

"He's a log." My eyes narrowed. _"Quill..."_

Noticing the growing tension between us, Gamora walked by, Drax following. "We should get moving."

"Right. Let's go get us a crystal."Peter started to lead, I starting behind them.

"I am Groot." I paused, turning to see Groot by the Milano arms folded, hurt.

"It's alright buddy, you can hang out here and watch the Milano instead." Turning back around, I clenched my fists. "See, you hurt his feelings."

Groot sighed.

The walk towards the soon heard and growing sound of chainsaws didn't take long, perhaps it was only to me, due to my annoyance towards Quill. Like I did hundreds of tons of others, I ignored him, zoning out. Upon reaching the nearest village, we hid behind the short line of rock that was nature's railing to the small landslide over viewing the village. "The Collector said the crystal should be somewhere in this village."

I wasn't paying attention.

Trees. Everywhere in that village logs and trees were being cut and burned. Guess the sound of chainsaws should'a told me. "Yeah, great! A whole town full of tree-killers.  
Good thing Groot ain't here to see this." I turned to see what Gamora was now pointing to. "Crystal, dead ahead."

Inside a rock carved shrine, was the crystal. "Hah,even better! They worship the d'ast crystal."

"Don't worry." I glanced over at Quill, who was grinning. "I've got a plan."

Looking around quickly to see if anyone was looking, Quill jumped up, and slid down the landslide. "Quill, what the hell are you doing?!" Gamora whispered, waving her arms slightly.

Hiding behind a log cabin as a female native, who looks perhaps like a talking goat, Peter looked up at us and nodded, smiling. Pecking his head around, he saw that she was gone, leaving only drying fabric in his mist. Rushing towards it, Peter quickly pulled it around his head, turning to look at us again, grinning gloatingly. Gamora frowned. "Stupid Quill," I heard her mutter as we all slid down the landslide.

...

Twisting the hanging fabric from my disguise slightly around my finger, I looked up. "Okay,these disguises are just offensive."

Quill, ignoring me, turned on his laser scalpel and started to get to work on the crystal. "You!" a gruff voice said suddenly. We turned, to see all the villagers coming towards us. Guess the sound of no chainsaws should'a told us. " What are you doing back there?" They turned their chainsaws on.

" Great plan, Quill. And by "great," I mean lousy," I said.

The apparent leader used his cane to make the chainsawers pause. He took a step closer. " Well? What are you doing there?"

Quill looked down at his laser scalpel, before looking back at them. " I was just, uh, fixing your sacred crystal here."

There was a pause, as the leader starred at the scalpel curiously and sort of longingly. "What sort of blade is that?"

Quill moved around his scalpel. " This? It's a laser scalpel," he said, slightly stunned.

" It might prove useful against the monsters, what do you want for it?" the leader asked hopefully.

" Oh! Oh I couldn't part with , my dear father killed six forest monsters with it," Quill said, realizing what was happening."It's probably worth I mean, as much as this crystal." Peter gestured to the Pandorian Crystal.

"Agreed! The crystal, for the blade."

Peter sighed deeply. "You drive a hard bargain, mister." He handed it over.

I raised an eyebrow. "Seriously?," I thought. "This might just be our easiest Pandorian Cystal yet!"

Quill was obviously thinking the same thing, as he turned to face us. "Ha! I can't believe that chump traded the crystal for a crummy pocket knife."

Little did we realize that the natives felt the same way. The leader chuckled as he turned to face his flock. "I can't believe that fool gave me this amazing blade for that worthless hunk of rock!"

The sound of something rustling through the trees made all of us turn. "I am Groot!" Groot yelled, upon coming into view, causing the native villagers to gasp in fear. "I am Groot!"

They backed away as Groot got near them, raising his arms. "I am Groot!" Peter ran over , blocking Groot. " It's okay! It's okay, he's with us.  
No monsters here, I promise."

I turned upon hearing more, lots more, rustling. "Um...Quill?"

Peter turned. "Huh?"

Giant rock looking creatures rushed out, heading towards the village, teeth sharp and covered in some sort of red fungus. The villagers stepped back, gasping."I stand corrected." I raised my eyebrow once more. "Huh, guess not."

Grasping hold of a greater speed, the creatures ran at the villagers, with them running away in panic. Gamora raced towards the log cabin nearest to the oncoming monsters, jumped upon it, and ran towards the edge, jumping off to slice at one.

Two little natives, separated by the chaos from their family, backed up as the monsters that had already made it to the village ganged up on them. The older of the two backed up against a log cabin, holding the other on her back, obviously she was too young to walk yet. Using the same tactic as Gamora, Drax jumped down between them and raised his blade, slashing out at the creatures. "Back, foul creatures." Putting his attention on helping the two girls, Drax lifted them up, and ran to the nearest villager, who opened their hands willingly. "Go. Now!" The villager raced off, as Drax swung around and slashed at the upcoming beasts.

I pulled out my blaster that I had swiped back from Quill, and grinned slyly. Something suddenly grabbed at the back of my jumpsuit. "Huh?" I said as something lifted me up. I turned my head to see Groot place me on his back. "Good idea Groot," I said, as I shot randomly at the monsters. Groot hit the ones I missed, I walking along and holding his back to shoot. One throw, though, made me fall off. "Off! Groot!" Groot, however, didn't notice.

Peter turned, watching as Groot threw one of the beasts off. "I am Groot!" Groot said, pointing at him, eyes wide. Peter shrugged, not getting his gesture. "Yeah! That was awesome, huh?" "I am Groot!" Groot said, pushing Peter to the side, and punching the gaining monster.

"Ow!" Peter said, dusting himself off. "You could've warned me!"

"I am Grooottt!" Groot yelled as he tried to explain that he did, just as the monster bit him. Eyes narrowing, Groot smashed the monster to bits.

" Leave our village, foul beasts!" one native cheered as the rock monsters started to retreat. They started to run to a much smaller cabin, and pulled out what looked to be fire blowers. They started to burn a wall around the village. "You get outta here!"

I lowered my blaster as the one I was fighting, retreated. I grinned. "Hah. Wimps,"I thought.

Soon all of the rock monsters were gone, except for the one Groot had smashed to bits. Didn't think that one would be getting up any time soon. The natives cheered as we all approached the wall of fire, to watch the last one go. The leader turned to face us. " Let us celebrate our victory and our heroic friends with a feast!" I grinned. I was starving. My grin quickly vanished however; as one of the natives let off one the fire blowers slightly in celebration. Groot staggered back. "I am Groot!"

...

Children raced about as Groot and I made our way towards the table with food. I jumped off onto the table as he sat down and started to devour everything.

Groot smiled upon seeing his little friend eat. Ever since Quill had shown off the journal, he had been worried about him, knowing what he was going through. He had been the first to meet Rocket, it was a fond memory. It was the day he had discovered a family. The day he had promised to protect his trigger-happy comrade.

And he had kept that promise, from saving him from an otherwise fatal crash, waking him up from a nightmare, or having giving him some of his food, like he did when they had just met. The memory was fond, him making his way in a dark alley with the back door to a restaurant. He had been all by himself, alone, traveling just to move since the accident that had happen on his planet. In these places, he wasn't seen as just another, like he had been on his planet, but a freak. A small shrill "out!" had snapped him out of his thoughts.

An old lady was holding a broom, swatting at some little creature that had been just starting to grasp hold of the scraps she had thrown out. The creature looked like a little bundle of fur with some burns in places and metal upon his back,on all fours, it's face black and white like a mask, looking like a bandit. The tail looked like a part of his body sticking out, with all the fur on it,...and looking quite young..

It quickly dropped the food in an instant, hissing slightly as the broom hit his tail. It started to back away, out of the light. The old woman tsked, before going back to sweeping and cleaning up for the night. Once the old woman closed the door, all the light was gone, except for the faint bleeding that came from a lamp post not to far away from the alley. Groot could slightly see everything around him. Taking another step forward, he heard a little whimper.

Looking down, he could see the creature backing away slowly, him almost stepping on his tail. Groot smiled before bending down and picking up on of the scraps the old lady had swept into a small neat little pile right next to the trashcan. He held it at the creature's level, offering it to him. "Who...who a-re, are y-you?" it asked shakily. "I am Groot." Tentatively, the small creature reached for the scrap, before swiping it away and devouring it. Groot sat down and offered him another piece. That was their dinner that night, sitting there eating as it started to pour, being protected by the little restaurant's little canopy.

They had stayed together, learning each other's little quirks. He soon learned what had happen to Rocket, mostly from waking him up from his out loud nightmares. But he had been shocked upon learning that Rocket was that quite young for his lifespan. He was already protective of him, only making it stronger upon learning that he was still just a kid. Seeing him eat made him smile, telling him that everything at that moment was okay.

Around us the party rang on, with Gamora beating a native on log-rolling for one.

Later on, Peter grimaced before turning on his rocket boots to fly up above a hug log, and swung, breaking it in half right down the middle. " Yes! Right down the middle in one that, Mr. Log!" he said, swinging the axe around as the natives cheered. "Well, technically you cheated, " I thought, before turning back to face Groot. Everything now was not so fine. "I am Groot," Groot sighed.

I whipped around to look at Quill."Hey! Show a little sensitivity, huh?" The party had been going on now for awhile, and everything had to do with some cutting down or doing something with a flarking log. Apparently none of the natives had taken noticed that one of their guest was a giant tree.

" Lighten up. It's a party! For the heroic Guardians of the Galaxy!" Quill cheered, unknowing that as he made that one last heroic stand, the Pandorain Crystal fell out of his pocket and rolled its way over to us. Groot picked it up.

"I am Groot?"

I smiled. " I think you better hold onto it, 're the responsible one."

Groot looked down at it for a moment, before sticking it in a safe little wedge in his armpit. I gave a thumbs up.

Gamora turned to face the leader of the tribe. She was taking a break from the party, and was sitting on the edge of the fire pit. "So those stone creatures.  
Have they attacked you before?"

" Mmm," the leader said, before starting to draw a line on the ground with his cane. "The Rexians first appeared after a fireball flew across the sky, streaking off to the west." He drew the fireball streaking across the sky."A few days later, we noticed the fungus spreading through the forest. And then, those creatures." Gamora nodded thoughtfully. "Try and have some fun, huh?" I said as Groot sat down near the other side of the fire pit, I sitting on his shoulder. "Hey, I promise, nobody's gonna chop you down. They'd have to get through me first."

The wood broke, causing a spark. "I am Groot! I am Groot!"

Gamora stood up and gasped upon seeing Groot catch on fire. I quickly jumped off, hands on my face, as Groot frantically tried to get the fire off. Groot ran forward, bumping into a cabin, before finally landing on the ground. He quickly rolled out the fire, Quill racing over towards the cabin and using his element blaster to freeze the fire. He turned to face a now sitting up Groot. " You'd think a walking tree would be a little more careful about forest fires."

Hurt, and scratching his leg, Groot muttered an "I am Groot," before leaving. _"Quill.."_

Rushing over, I gave him a good kick, with Gamora not to far behind, giving him a good smack on the head. " What? Ow!"

...

" They no longer appear grateful," Drax said a few minutes later, as we all stood before the cabin, being before the natives. True, they no longer looked grateful.

"Nearly getting your whole town burned down? It's kind of a mood-killer." Peter paused. "Yeah, I think we'll be going now."

"We can't leave them vulnerable to another rock monster attack," Gamora said.

"Agreed." Drax turned slightly to look at the little young native he had saved earlier, clinging onto his back. "I have become quite fond of the little wood-choppers," he said, using the word I had called them earlier. He gave me a glance.

"Besides, we ain't goin' nowhere, till you apologize to Groot!" I said, turning and pointing at finger at Quill.

"He tries to torch the whole village, and I got to apologize?"

I folded my arms. "Mmm-hmm."

"The young kilt is right Quill."

My ears shot up, eyes widening . "What did you just call me?" I whipped over to face Drax, and thrusted a finger at him, almost ready to pounce.

" Whoa, whoa ,whoa ..."

Quill was quick to to step in between us."Kilt. It means child in in his home world. You know, cause you are one. "

I crossed my arms. "Don't call me that."

Quill looked back and forth at each of us for a few seconds before putting his hands up.

"Here, I'll go apologize." He started to walk off. "Hey Groot, why'd you leaf? Get it? 'Cause you're a tree!"

I growled, arms still crossed. Sadly, I got it.

...

A thousand light years away, on an uninhabited planet, thunder rumbled above the forest trees, before a single bolt of purple lightning struck at the ground, emitting a loud crisp.


	5. Purple Lightning Part 2

Peter bent down, picking up a piece of fallen bark from Groot. He sighed. "I can't believe I'm doing this." However, the odd red stuff upon it soon caught his attention. His eyes widened. "Dude, is that mold? Ugh!" He quickly threw the bark away before standing up. Quill wiped off his hand on his shirt. "Gross."

Looking down, his eyes widened once more softly as he noticed a trail of the same red stuff leading a way through the woods. To led to what though, Groot? He didn't have much of a choice. He started following it.

"Groot! Come on, man. Lighten up!"

He hadn't meant to hurt Groot's feelings. It was just a little teasing, a little joking while he laid off of Rocket. He had done it before, and up till now, Groot had never really seemed to have minded. True, Rocket was the only one that truly understood him most of the time. It was very rarely that they completely understood him, without having to make any inferences at all that they were right. They were slowly getting there, with slowly still being a key word. That one "I am Groot" spoken after we had discovered Rocket's true age was one of the few times that they could fully say that they understood him. Even though he had lived the longest with the raccoon, he had no idea that Rocket was that young. That wasn't the thing bothering him, was it? No, Groot wouldn't have pouted over that like he had just a moment ago, that couldn't be it. But what could it have been? "I hadn't said anything hurtful," he soon reasoned. "I mean he got upset over the family tree for a literal tree joke, how was that hurtful?"

Climbing up on a rather large rock, he gasped slightly , upon noticing Groot not too far away, sitting down on a log, facing away. "Yo, Groot! That you?"

Peter pulled his feet up, and started heading for Groot.

" Hey, uh, apparently I said something that you took the wrong way, and can you at least look at me? I'm trying to be sincere here," He said, getting frustrated as Groot still continued on , not even acknowledging his presence. "Okay, fine. If you're gonna be that way, I won't look at you, either." Peter turned around and folded his arms.

"How's that? I mean, I bust on your little buddy Rocket all the the time, and you don't see him getting all weepy."

Little did he know that as he ranted on and on more, Groot's transformation did as well. Bigger and bigger he started to grow, groaning as the fungus gained more and more control of vines slowly weaved themselves around his body, mostly around the flexible things such as fingers and toes, taking away all the little amount of resistance the plant man still had. "Come on man, if that's all you're gonna say, whoa!" Quill said, turning around and finally seeing it for himself. "I am Groot!"

...

Back at the village, the leader of the tribe ( who we learned was named Lando Lengauge) turned to face Drax once more. They were up at the roof of the burned cabin now, working hard to fix it. Gamora and I were supervising not to far away, right in front of the cabin, looking upwards, watching it unfold. "Hand me another log, Drax," he said. Drax nodded before turning and receiving a log from the native next to him. The native turned as Drax started to, gaining a new log as well.

"Guys, we have a problem!" Quill suddenly yelled, running into the clearing. We turned, just as a huge monstrous Groot made his way into the clearing, following Quill. His arms were covered with the fungus, as well as his head, legs, and torso. Half his face looked as if some one had pulled on it, causing crooked lines and a half monstrous face. "I am Groot!" he roared, uprooting the two fully grown trees besides him as he merely raised his arms.

"Quill, what did you do?"

"Me?!" Quill slid to a stop right in front of me, and gestured at Groot as the natives around us started to race at the now monstrous tree.

" It's the fungus!" Lengauge yelled. " It's taken him over, just like the rock creatures!"

Not too far away, Titus looked up upon hearing the growl. He had just ripped off the final vine that had made it's home the top of his ship during impact. " Oh, you've got to be kidding."

The natives scattered as Groot swung his arm around, pushing up huge rocks and sand from the ground. We raised towards him as he continued on wrecking the village, raising up his hand, while strong , huge fungus vines emerged from it and plunged themselves into cabins. They raised up again however, and struck at us, making us leap out of the way. Landing on her feet as usual, Gamora swung at the vines with her sword as they came at her, cutting them in half. " He's growing out of control. How can we stop Groot without hurting him?"

My eyes widened as one vine came at me quickly. I had landed on my stomach , never being the balance type, and having scratched my right knee. Drax quickly came forward and sliced it in half with his knife. "Thanks Drax," I said absentmindedly as I got on to my feet and quickly pulling on my jet pack after getting it out of my pocket dimension vial." Drax glanced back at me once before turning back to swing at the oncoming vines now coming at him. "Do not speak of it, young kilt. "

"Urrggg...Don't call me that!"

I flew above the scene to face Groot. "Grooottt," he moaned.

I landed on his fungus covered shoulder. "Groot! You gotta cut it out! You're acting crazy!"

"I am Groot," Groot said, as fungus vines emerged from his covered neck and pushed me off. "Ahhhhhhhh!"

Peter quickly turned on his jet boots and rose upwards, catching me . "Ugh! He's just talking gibberish."

"Oh, when I say that, it's an insult?"

I turned my head to look up at him. "Seriously! Even I can't understand him."

Peter swerved around the now coming vines and moved towards Groot. He pulled out his element blaster. "Let's give this a try." He blasted ice out of it at Groot's feet.

Quill moved as Groot started to rock, and flew over and landed at the short line of rock we had came by earlier. "Timber!" he cried.

"I am Groot!" Groot moaned as he landed down on the rather large ledge of a long landside right next to us. "I don't think that's gonna keep the big guy down long," I said, hearing Gamora and Drax catching up to us. Drax jumped down onto ledge with Groot, and started to rip off bits of the fungus. "If fungus controls him, we must remove the fungus."

Peter turned on space helmet. "Okay, problem," he said, as he examined Groot. "The fungus is all up inside him too, and so is the crystal?" he asked, noticing something shiny and small in Groot. He quickly turned off his helmet and began patting himself down.

"Don't bother. I gave it to him for safekeeping."

"We need to stop Groot's infection from the inside of the root," Gamora stated. There was a pause. "If you'll pardon the expression."

"Alright," Quill agreed. "Me and Rocket will go in and figure out how to deal with the fungus. You guys stay out here and protect the villagers if the beanstalk here wakes up."

Gamora raised an eyebrow. "Huh?"

"Grrr...," I started to mutter, shaking my head as my hands were placed upon it.

"As in, Jack and the Beanstalk? Famous earth legend? Okay. See, there's these magic beans, and you know what? Never mind." Quill lowered his hands in surrender.

"Come on! I saw a big knothole down by his leg!" I said, leaping down. Quill followed. "Never thought I'd have to play tree surgeon."

"Really, Quill? You're goin' there?"

As we reached the knothole, Quill's eyes widened slightly. " Yeah, that's not creepy at all." Inside sharp, long branches were everywhere, red fungus seemingly glowing on most.

"Poor guy," I said,"That's gotta hurt."

We stepped in, me having to practically jump in as to Quill just raising his leg. "Wow! He's empty inside."

"Oh, there you go again! It so happens that Groot has a rich inner life! He's a deep thinker, man."

"No, I mean he's literally hollow," Peter said, stopping.

" Yeah, he oh, yeah.I guess he is. Weird ," I said, stopping as well, looking around. He was literally hollow, with the branches slightly spaced out now. Weird.

Outside, Gamora turned her head. "Don't look now, but here comes the welcoming committee."

Drax turned, seeing the villagers slowly coming up towards them with chainsaws in hand and metal made cannons. "They do not look very welcoming."

Cries were heard, including,"Destroy the monster!"

"Hold on!" Gamora cried," I don't know what you're planning, but that "monster" is our friend."

"And our other friends are inside that friend." Drax motioned to Groot.

"I'm very sorry, but the only thing that has kept this infection from spreading is fire!"Lengauge cried." We must burn every trace of the fungus we find."

Choruses of "Burn the monster!" rang out from the villagers.

...

"Ugh. This stuff is everywhere," Peter said. "It's like a neon noodle factory threw up on everything."

"No wonder he's going nutso," I said worriedly, patting a branch and taking a finger covered amount of fungus off of it. I rubbed it off. "Don't worry, we'll get this gunk out of your system. Somehow ."

Quill pulled out his element blaster. "Maybe we can burn the fungus without hurting Groot too badly."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! You see that sticky stuff on the walls? One little spark, and that sap goes "Whoosh!" So no flamethrowers, no element blaster," I thrusted my finger at him at this point," And don't even think about using those jet boots." Quill lowered his blaster.

The villagers continued on, torches ablaze and coming. Drax's frown deepened. "We must not hurt them." There was a pause." Badly."

Gamora raced towards rather huge pile of stacked wood and swung her sword. The wood quickly started to tumble down. The villagers close to edge of the ledge quickly ran for cover, but it was only a few minutes till the last log had tumbled down the landslide and rolled out of the way. Seconds past as they all watched as it slowly slowed to a stop before turning back to what they were doing.

"Aah!" some of the tougher yelled as they charged up the landslide, to only be kicked down by either Gamora or Drax. After watching her husband land at her feet, one launched a log on fire out of a metal cannon. Drax's and Gamora's eyes widened as it flew at them, managing to leap out of the way just in time, for once not landing on their feet. The log soared past them and into Groot.

...

I rolled my eyes in response to Quill's lame joke. "Huh?" I muttered, pausing as a soft crunching, as if something was on fire, was getting louder and louder. Flames dancing on soaring log came into view, the sparks jumping off and getting everything on fire. "What the-" Peter grabbed my hand and started to pull me along. "Fire in the knothole!"

" That ain't funny!"

Groot started to lift his head, eyes opening. "I am Grooooot..."

Gamora and Drax glanced up once before turning to the villagers, who came charging as Groot slowly made his way up. "There's too many," Drax uttered.

Gamora started racing towards the rising Groot. "Grab on!" Drax followed not to far behind in pursuit. They leaped onto the long drape of fungus draping down from Groot's hand.

Everything was moving. The once bottom was now moving upwards, with the branches slightly straightening out. Both of us jumped and grabbed on to a branch an arm's distance apart. They creaked. Peter looked up at me, our legs dangling. " Okay, either I'm tree-sick, or your big, wooden buddy is tilting."

I looked down to see that the flame had now eaten up everything where we had just been seconds before,now the size had grown to met the circumference of Groot's leg, leaping upwards and making it to be a seemingly rising pool of fire . "That hot-foot must have woke him up!" _Creak!_

Peter glanced up just as his branch broke. "Ahhh!"

I glanced up, eyes filled with horror, upon hearing mine do the exact same thing. "Ahhhh!" I yelled, landing on a fast moving landslide downwards. " Oh, come on! I'm supposed to light the firewood, not the other way around!"

I groaned mentally . Great. I was gonna die with the biggest idiot alive. "Still not funny, Quill!"

"Groot! I hate roasted vegetables!" I gulped.

" Not even close to funny!"

The landslide was coming to an end, ending with a curve upwards, only for us victims to fall into the fire. Only a couple of more seconds and we would be roasted vegetables. Yikes. I glanced up, looking for any chance of escape. My eyes stopped upon a lone, small branch facing downwards, forming a small and perfect stalactite. I smiled. Yes.

I got ready to jump. "Ready, one, two, three, go!" I thought before leaping at it. I was on. I made sure to grasp hold of both of my hands, no way I wanted to become a roasted "raccoon" as Quill called it. I made a note to never eat roasted vegetables again. "Ahhhhhh!"

I looked downwards. Quill had came at the end of the landslide, and was up in the air.

Quickly pulling out his small grappling hook, he swung it, for it to cling itself into the bark and stay. Slowing down to a stop, he hung on, safe. Something though, crunched. Looking up, I saw the stalactite slowly starting to break apart. " Oh, flarg."

"Ahhhh!" I yelled as it broke, flying downwards. Quill looked up, eyes widened and started to rush to the direction that I was falling. "I got ya, little buddy!" He jumped, catching me just in time, but by the tail. Ouch.

Quill slowed to a stop and pulled me up. I looked up at him."We get out of here alive, we don't tell nobody about this, okay?" I said, climbing over him onto his shoulder, clinging on.

"Come 's get up to the top before he decides to break dance." We both looked up as Quill started to go up.

"Yeah. No idea what that means. And you say Groot don't make no sense."

...

Now with the gigantic Groot up and about, the villagers had all but forgotten their courage they had earlier, pausing only for perhaps one little swing with a puny torch, before fleeing for their lives.  
"I am Groot." Groot started his way to the little village, which looked like a puny bug to Gamora as she got on Groot's shoulder, compared to Groot's gigantic and squashing foot. She turned to face Drax, who had made his way up there too. "Keep Groot busy. He can't attack the village if he's after us."

"I shall do my best to occupy his attention," Drax said as a shadow rose above them. Looking up, they saw Groot's large hand coming at them. "Well that shouldn't be that hard, "Gamora guessed as she leaped off, landing on Groot's other hand as Drax stayed. "He's already out to kill us." The hand went down, Drax grunting as he pushed the hand off.

Gamora started running up Groot's arm to his shoulder once more, ready to distract. "I am Groot!" Groot said, eyes upon her as vines shoot up from his neck to her. Pulling out her sword, she swung at the oncoming vines, only to get caught. Wiggling in mid-air as the fungus stretched farther away, taking her away, it suddenly pausing , to slowly flip her over and pull her over to Groot's face, Gamora struggled throughout with her sword. "There, almost..and," she thought, finally freeing her sword, she swung, freeing herself and cutting off the vines. She landed on the other arm. "There."

Lowering her sword, something big got her attention."Drax, look! That meteor must be the source of the fungus," she said, walking to the edge and motioning to the meteor with her sword.

"Then I will destroy it at once!" A shot was heard, and Drax raised his arm to block his face from the sudden attack. The bomb landed not to far away, not really causing any damage to the monstrous Groot, but causing damage to it's self. A Nova ship flew into view.

" Titus to Nova Headquarters.I'm attempting to neutralize the mutative menace." He started shooting at Groot.

Gamora quickly dodged behind a risen little barrier of wood. She looked up at the Nova ship, not even flinching as one of the shots hit the wood she was hiding behind, barely missing her."This day just gets better and better."

"I do not see how a Nova Corps attack improves our situation." Drax quickly jumped to the side, landing on his stomach, dodging the incoming fire.

"I am Groot!" Groot bellowed

...

We finally made our way to the top, climbing onto the rather large branch the end of the grappling hook had landed in. A large glowing ball was seemingly floating slightly above us, like a sun. "What the krutack is that?" Quill asked.

"I don't know, his heart?" I manged.

"Plants don't have hearts!" _Quill..._ " Except hearts of palm. And celery hearts."

"You finished?"

"Think so," Quill's hand up to his chin as if he was thinking. "No, wait, artichoke hearts! Haha!Now, I am finished." I mentally groaned, looking down before a small vine of fungus caught my eye. Looking up, I watched as it crept closer to the green ball, to only wither away. My eyes widened.  
"Whatever it is, the fungus withers when it gets close to it, maybe that's how we beat this thing."

Quill turned on his space helmet to examine it. Looking around near it, watching the vines oddly wither away from the thing he noticed the Pandorian crystal nestled above it. "Pandorian crystal at 12 o'clock. Hello , beautiful." He turned off his helmet.

"Jeez, Quill,can't you focus on Groot for once?"

I am! I'm all about saving Groot!" Quill said, leaping onto and climbing on the thick branch above us. " But while we figure out how to do that I'm gonna grab this crystal!" He turned on his grappling hoot and started up. " Fine, the lousy crystal."

"Huh?" I said, noticing some small glop of the fungus falling off of the branch above Quill and landing not to far behind him." Uh, Quill? Something weird over here."

It started to grow, forming into an odd pink creature, looking like the fungus vines that had a back, torso,and head connecting them together. It started it's way towards Quill. Gross.

Quill started reaching for the crystal, no notice yet of the thing behind him."Hang on, almost got it..." The creature opened his sideways mouth to reveal tow rows of jagged teeth. "Quill!" I exclaimed," Behind you!" I quickly pulled out my gun, shooting when the creature was right behind him. Bad choice. " Quill!" I yelled as he started to fall down into the green ball, the creature having bumped into him.

"Ahhhh!" There was a loud splash, as if the ball was made out of water."Quill..."

Something made a noise behind me. Looking back, I saw that there were more of them, starting their way at me. I pulled my gun out of it's strap on my back, and started to shoot. Again and again I shot, only having taken two out with nineteen gaining on me. I glanced behind me."Hey! Little help here?" My eyes widened upon seeing Quill still in the ball, looking quiet lifeless." Quill?"

...

The Nova ship flew around Groot, as he swung. "I am Groot!"

Rising up into clearer air, Titus pressed a button."Titus here. Conventional weapons proving ineffective against current clearance to use anti-matter ordnance."

"Request denied, corpsman!" a voice said, coming out of the small speaker. " The resulting explosion would likely destroy the village and its-" Titus turned off the speaker and his connection with Nova. " That's a risk I'm willing to take." Pulling up the missiles, he started pulling the lever. Gamora's eyes widened.  
"Anti-matter missiles! Is he insane? He'll kill us all!"

"No. He will not." Drax started running to the edge of the Groot's shoulder blade and jumped, landing on the ship. The whole ship was jostled. Titus looked out of his window as Drax slowly made his way across the wing of the plane. He started to pull of the cover to the anti-matter missiles, giving a loud grunt when it flew off. He did the same for the missile. " _No!"_ Titus thought. Tilting his plane again and again, Drax lost his hold and disappeared. Titus smiled."One down, four to go."

...

"Snap out of it!" I cried, shooting. "Come on! Say something, Quill! A stupid tree joke, anything !" I glance up at the ball. No. I couldn't lose Quill. No. He might've been a jackass for the whole evening, but I couldn't lose him. He was part of my family, even if he was to force me away after this adventure, and I couldn't lose him. I was ready for when they forced me away. But not now.

Quill opened his eyes, something tingly moving throughout his body. Groot appeared in his mind, holding up the ball, to push it down into the dead ground. Plants and life started to grow back, his planet was back,it was extraordinary. Quill pulled out his blaster, now understanding and having a plan. "I am Groot!" He started to ice the ball.

I glanced back, shocked."Quill? What are you watering that thing for?!"

"I am Groot!I am Groot! I am Groot! I am Groot!"

The fungus started to wither and die all around. I grinned. "I don't know what you did, Quill, but you're killing off the fungus!"

"I am Groot!" Groot moaned, coming to a stop, raising his hand. " Groot,are you all right?" Gamora asked. The sound of an engine arrived. Gamora turned, hanging onto a vine of the fungus, and saw the Nova ship.

"Lock target and fire," Titus commanded. The ship complied it's master, but it never really got to fire. As soon as the missile left it's holding spot, Drax grabbed hold of it. Holding on as best as he could, Drax clung to the ship and the missile, slowly losing grip of the ship. The missile raced forward, Drax clambering to the front of the missile. Landing on Groot, he pushed as hard as he could at the missile, finally pushing it backwards, as he fell. Titus's eyes widened as it came his way, moving quickly , for it to zoom past him, colliding into the meteor. It exploded.

"Aahh!" Drax cried, falling, till a large hand reached out behind him and caught me. Drax stood up."I told you I would destroy the fungus," Drax said, getting up and jumping off.

...

"Is it just me, or is it getting cramped in here?" I said, as everything started to shrink around us.

"I am Groot!" Quill cried as we started running out of there.

" That's offensive! But it don't get funnier with repetition!" I said, leaping off a branch. "Ahhhh!" was all Quill had to say at that as we leapt out of the hole. For once, I was the one who landed on their feet, while Peter landed on his stomach. I grinned, wanting to laugh. Drax and Gamora made their way up to us came a noise. "Huh?"

Quill and I turned, watching as Groot started to shrink back into his regular size."So, what happened?" Gamora asked, making us turn back around. " How did you get rid of the fungus?"

Quill shrugged. "I am Groot?"

"Seriously, knock it off!"

Quill covered his mouth. "I am Groot!" He removed it. I-I am Groot!" he said, now freaking out. " I am Groot, I am Groot."

"Your friend?"Lengauge asked behind us. Gamora and Drax turned. The villagers had now surrounded us. "And that explosion?"

Drax smiled."The meteor that brought the fungus has been destroyed..."

"And without the fungus to infect them, no more monsters," Gamora finished.

"Attention!" a voice suddenly cried, making me jump. Looking up, we all saw that it was Titus. " You're under arrest for interfering with a Nova Corps officer in the course of his , stand clear, so I can blast that monster."

I stepped in front of Groot. Lengauge stepped in front of us, his pack following in pursuit."The Guardians of the Galaxy are heroes, not criminals!If you would do them harm, you'll have to go through us I don't imagine Nova Corps takes kindly to one of their own slaughtering innocents." Titus frowned.

"Fine. But I still got my eye on you Guardians."

Titus turned his ship, and left. The natives cheered.

"Listen, Quill, I'm sorry you had to leave your crystal."

Quill turned around to face me. He smiled."I am Groot." Groot made his way over to us. Coughing, he spit out the crystal. "I am Groot. "

Quill took it. "I am Groot." Pulling out his boom box, he placed the crystal inside, it opening to reveal the map, now slightly larger. Gamora turned to face Lengauge, Quill putting the cryptocube now back up. "Thanks for the hospitality earlier, and the the help." Lengauge smiled. "Anytime friends, and thank you." Gamora nodded.

We all slowly nodded our last farewells before starting to head back to the ship. "No, wait!" Lengauge cried suddenly. We turned. "It's late," he said, motioning to the sky. "Stay here for the night, we offer our hospitality once more for the heroic Guardians of the Galaxy." We all looked at Quill, who grinned. "I am Groot."

The door slowly creaked as it was shut behind us, letting us take out our belongings in privacy. I slowly looked around. It was a small cabin, the only one they had that was uninhibited and non-destroyed in Groot's attack. There was about two small rooms placed into one, with a small kitchen supply area off to the side, a round small table surrounded by chairs near the window, and one small bed and couch on the other side of the cabin, the soft brown carpet that only covered half of the floor covering that half. Off to the side was a smaller room with it's door slightly ajar, revealing a toilet.

Gamora, Drax, Groot, and Quill all placed down their belongings quickly, getting up and glancing at each other. "I call the bed!"

Peter swung his feet off the couch and looked around. Everyone else was asleep. Gamora had gotten the bed, Drax, Groot, and I having made small little beds out of brought blankets on the floor. Quill smiled. It was nice seeing everyone he cared for around and peaceful. Standing up, he quickly stepped over Drax, pausing as Drax rolled slightly over and muttered something in his sleep. A second past. Nothing. Sighing out of relief, he headed past Groot and I, he made his way to his bag and pulled out a spare blanket. It was getting chilly. Turning, he paused close to me, squatting down on his knees. I rolled over to him snoring, out cold. Peter chuckled quietly and grinned. "He looks so cute!" he thought.

Unknowingly, I looked extremely younger and cute to him asleep, with the black and white painted mask, light snoring, and curled up. My nose twitched and I growled softly. Peter frowned, sensing the sudden change in sleep. "Rocket?" Quill whispered, slightly shaking me. I whimpered, caught up in the dream.

_Something slithered around in the later days..._

Quill's frown deepened. It was obvious to him that I was dreaming of Halfworld, thanks to the sudden upbringing of it in the last two days. And it was all his fault. I probably felt weak, vulnerable in their eyes, thinking that he was now even more seen as the creature those scientists had created on that blasted cold table, needles, and recalled the feeling he had when he discovered that the cryptocube only worked for him for one particular reason. It wasn't the best feeling.

But he wasn't going to let me have to go through it alone, not like he did. He rested his hand on my head and ruffling my fur affectionately. "Don't worry Rocket," he whispered, "You're not alone and no one is going to harm you, I-(Peter paused and glanced around the room) we promise." And with that,Quill stood up, patting me on the head and going back to the couch. I rolled over, not feeling or hearing any of that. I whimpered.

...

 _"N_ o, please," the scientist George Jones begged. This man, this m-monster was ruining everything. All of their hard work. First with the discovering of Halfworld, to the entering, to the destroying, and then to the murdering. He had already killed almost more than half of the scientist's partners in his department of the testing, where they studied the machinery before testing it on the subjects. He was now the only human left alive in that room he was in now, apart from that man. It had once been the break room. But now dead bodies of colleagues laid all over the floor, with their blood splattered what was scary wasn't the murderings, oh no, it was how the man did it.

If he was a normal being, the scientist could have surely and easily fought him back with a gun. But the man was surely not a normal being if not a being at fought with just a stick. A rather powerful stick. Two said words and you were dead.

The man raised his stick and with the speed of lightning, was over at the scientist, choking him by his collar. George kicked desperately, trying to get his feet back on the ground and as far away from the man as possible. "Then take me to your experiments," the man slurred.

"Wha-huh?" George asked, confused. Why in the world would such an apparently powerful being need or want to see their experiments?

"I said, bring me to your experiments."

George nodded hastily, seeing black spots. The man dropped him unceremoniously.

"T-these are the experiments,"George said, pulling up a screen with all the experiments and their numbers in the room right next to the hallway with the subjects. Reaching upwards, he touched the first picture of 13P45 and started to flip through them.

"And this one died however, in the vocal transplacement," the scientist swiped the screen, showing a different subject. "Stop," the man said suddenly as the list of the tests the subject had survived in appeared. George turned. "H-him? Subject 89P13?"

The man slid forward, taking in all of the information on the screen. Finally, after a moment of killing silence, he turned to face the scientist. "He has survived all the horrible test you have done on him?"

George nodded hastily. "Y-yes."

"I'll take him."

"W-what?!"

The man pulled out his wand swiftly, putting it in the scientist's view. "I will take him. You can have him back, I just require certain times to spend with the creature."

George nodded hastily once more. "Of course, anytime you want. Just please don't alert us to Nova." The man nodded.

Inside the hallway, inside the middle bottom cage, the creature in question whimpered. He knew he had been picked, his image and name still on the screen. Subject 89P13. It had been a couple of months now, and he recognized that as his name, his symbol. He hadn't been there long enough to remember the one his mother had gave him. It must've been something nice, or at least nicer than this, right?

The scientist opened the door, leading the odd man to the trembling creature's cage. The man bent down to see the inside of the cage better, the creature stumbling backwards. He said something unintelligible, and the scientist bent down and opened the cage door. The man reached in slowly, grabbing him where he could not scratch and pulled. "No!" the creature cried, grabbing onto the bars as the hands wrapped harder around his waist. "No!" he cried out in fear once more, it all scratchy and garbled. He still hadn't gotten used to the new noise that came out of his mouth now. The man showed no intentions of letting go, only pulling harder till finally ripping the bars out of his little hands. The creature whimpered before struggling, only to be held by the man calmly, being lead into another room swiftly. It continued on that way, the man coming and taking him into another room. The man suddenly paused. "Oh, and George Jones?"

The scientist shook his head hastily. "Y-yes Mister?" The man whipped around faster than light, stick raised. " Avada Kedavra!"

He could never remember what exactly what happened in there afterwards, but he knew that it was the worst and most painful of tests. As he cried on that dam table, something went on. Something large and scaly slithered around in the later da _ys._

My hand twitched ,my tail moving closer around me in my sleep, as slowly and unknowingly, one half of a strand of fur in the strip of my tail was consumed by the oncoming color of white, creating a silver white gleam in the moonlight that was streaming through the window.

...

A thousand light years away, on the uninhabited planet, thunder rumbled once more above the forest trees, before striking down a single bolt of purple lightning once again in the same spot as before emitting once more a loud crisp, breaking into the ground.

...

Quilll sat down, sighing softly as he raised up the Pandorain crystal up. It was morning, and they had gotten back on their ship and back into space not too long ago. I had seemed to have no remembrance of what Quill had done last night to him, even making him wonder if he should tell me while awake. Nah, that might cause another issue. Quill yawed. He was still slightly tired and asleep.

He placed it inside the cryptocube, making it light up and reveal the map. A triangle showed up, marking another spot." Oh, another point on the map to something." He paused. "The Cosmic Seed? My dad?" He still didn't feel all that well about only him being able to active the cryptocube, knowing that the only reason was because of his father. His father, who he wasn't even sure if he really wanted to meet. He had left them, abandon them, his mom and him. Gone before he was even born.

"I am Groot."

Quill turned. Groot was standing in the doorway.

"Yeah, I get it," Quill looked down at his boom box, closing it. "Carrying around the thing that can grow back your entire civilization inside you? You're a lot more than just a log."

Out in the hallway hearing the noise, I turned my head to the noise, finally finding them. I walked into the doorway. "There you guys are! Hey, listen I gotta know, what happened when you touched the big, glowy thing, huh?"

"I am Groot!"

Groot chuckled at this. "I am Groot."

I placed my hands on my hips. "Ah! I know you can talk again.I heard you sing into your stupid tape!"

Quill looked up."It's kind of a blur.I mean, I still can't understand what Groot says, but I think I know what he means." He looked back at us and smiled. I grinned. "Oh, you think! Well I know exactly what he that right, bud?" I said before turning and starting off.

"I am Groot."

"That's okay, big guy. I'll keep your secret." It was his form of apology.

Groot smiled.


	6. The Dragon Sanctuary:The Knocking

Quill sighed, trying to break the early morning silence. It didn't work.

It was early morning in the Milano's main piloting room, two days after the whole Forrest Monster Groot scene. Quill and I were alone, the only sound being of the engine and Quill's sigh.

He turned back around, seeing that it wasn't working, and went back to work piloting the ship to the new coordinates the Collector had recently given us one day ago. Meanwhile, I continued on working steadily on my Mantlo, having gotten it back from Quill. I turned to pick up my wrench, not noticing Quill stealing a glance at me, eyes filled with concern for his much younger and furry comrade.

The dream those nights ago had seemed to been long forgotten to me in Quill's eyes, much to his liking. He liked seeing me being normal, or as normal as a crazy cybernetic past assassin raccoon could be. He hated seeing any of his friends or as he was beginning to call them more often than not, his family ,hurt , and at the scene to him that night it seemed as if he was just looking at a little fragment of his friend, a hurt fragment of his family, a piece that was caught and stuck forevermore in a hurt and scared part of his past. He hated it. All of a sudden, he flashed back to the memories of sitting by his mother, laying down on that bed and plugged up to who knows what kind of wires with all kinds of random unknown medicine to a ten year old. Strangely enough, I reminded him of her as he thought back to that, having laid upon a dam cold table and being injected with whoever knows what just for the fun of it being the only difference. His mother was only injected with fluids to help her, save her, while I got it just for the plain spite of it, for the fun of it, the plain exact opposite. He had always hated hospitals ever since then slightly, knowing that it wasn't exactly their fault she died, they did everything they could, but now he understood why I hated them with total spite, remembering with guilt how they practically jumped at the information that I wouldn't ever step willingly into any hospital of any kind, and now he knew why. And he didn't blame me.

He still had the same opinion as before over hospitals, however Halfworld was a total different topic. If he could, he _would_ go through the whole place, slashing at all of them dam scientists. Turning slightly to get one last glance to make sure that I was alright, he shifted back to his job, steering the ship. However there was something he missed.

Unknown and easy to overlook, was the once half white strand of fur in my tail, now having completed turning white.

Truthfully, I didn't remember the dream at all, the whole situation with Quill was still unknown and not likely to pop up in memory any time soon. I gripped my hands tighter around the wrench screwing in a bolt into the side of the Mantlo.  
The door creaked as it was opened, us turning to see Gamora and Drax walking in. "How much longer Quill?" Gamora said, walking over and looking at the calculations.

"Not too much longer, in fact any minute now."

I glanced over at Drax, who was oddly silent and glancing over at me. I turned away back to my Mantlo, feeling uneasy about this. Ever since that dasted journal, Drax had remained being rather odd. I didn't like it. Gamora and Quill all seemed to go back to normal it seemed after the monster Groot thing, why couldn't Drax? To tell the truth, I was shocked that they had, acting as if the whole journal thing hadn't happened at all. They didn't push me away, call me a worthless freak like anyone else I knew would have. Despite feeling a little anxious with what the hell was up with Drax, a small smile softly made it's way to my face, barely visible. Perhaps I could trust them. I perhaps really had something going on here. Perhaps I could call them family. I glanced over at Drax slightly, who was no longer looking my way. Well, at least with those two.

"Ah, there it is!" Quill said suddenly, snapping me out of my thoughts. I turned to see the light blue atmosphere of our destined planet through the cockpit window, the light white streamers of clouds wrapping around themselves in a circle slightly. It was actually rather beautiful. _Not_ that I would admit that out loud.

"Alright guys, this is where the Collector stated it to be. The last Pandorian Crystal, the very last one. We'll finally have a full map to the Cosmic Seed." Quill turned and smiled at us softly. You could tell that he was excited, yet nervous. I didn't blame him. I hardly even took notice as he turned back around and started downwards. It was easy to perceive from the way he talked fondly of his mother but not of his father, that there was something going on there. After the whole Ronin fiasco it was even revealed that he didn't even know the darn asshole. I don't remember my parents, or even the fact that I actually did have some at some point in my life and it didn't bother me ,knowing that they would've probably just rejected me after it all happened, but to Quill it was obvious that family mattered. He was just the caring type, being one of the first of us to care about the innocent lives at Xandar. I slightly hoped that the old bastard that was Quill's father had a good reason for it all. No matter how he would say it or smile right now, it was easy to perceive that nervousness made up that smile, easy to perceive that it made up-

Sounds started suddenly coming out, frantic beeping being followed by continuous alerts on screens exclaiming that something was wrong with the ship, snapping me out of my thoughts. We were now in the atmosphere, going way to fast downwards. "What's going on?" Gamora exclaimed.

"I don't know!"

Quickly pushing my Mantlo to the side, I rushed to the seat next to Quill, to see that the screens were acting off, white little locks coming to the center opening and closing over and over again and glitching were just some of the things happening to it, making seemingly untouchable. Grabbing onto the controls, I struggled to go upwards. Our missiles suddenly shot out. Gamora leaned forward over Quill, trying anything to get any type of control on the now locked screen and controls. "We no longer have any control of the ship!"

"So it just locked it's self to go downwards to kill us?!" I cried.

Gamora glanced over at me. "Apparently."

"Don't worry, I've got an escape route for this," Quill said, putting his hand underneath the screen and pressing some unseen button. "We'll just drive it the old manual way." The main flying screen suddenly pulled it's self back into the ship with a small whizz and out popped in it's place an old wooden steering wheel. He grasped hold of it. I raised an eyebrow.

Despite us free falling down to our deaths with no control, there was a moment of disbelief silence as we just looked at it and Quill. "Um Quill, how long have you had that?"

"For awhile now, got it back when I was still a Ravager."

"Yeah, and, um, why in the hell do you have it?"

Quill glanced at us sheepishly. "I had this sort of thing sort of happen earlier on with Yondu. Besides," Quill pulled out a small blue captain's hat, a small smile escaping from his lips as he plopped it on. He motioned around at the ship. "I've always wanted to be captain of flying a ship."

We groaned. Quill's smile disappeared before he quickly turned back to steer. Turning it, it turned the ship, somewhat gaining control of the ship. I pulled up on the controls once more, smiling as it slightly pulled the Milano upwards this time. However, we were still falling. Quill glanced at me.

"Okay Rocket, lets try to land this somewhere soft."

"Um Quill..." Gamora started, pointing to something in the distance. We looked up.

The swirl of clouds we were headed in, had just now finished separating, revealing two tall mountain tops. "That's not soft!" Quill stated as he hurriedly started turning the wheel to find it stuck. "It's jammed!"

Quill struggled to turn it again, jolting it. I pulled on the controls, finding that they would neither go up nor down now. "I can't get it to pull up again!"

We were locked in a path towards the incoming mountains, the snow at the top being the only soft thing in the whole situation. Quill continued on hurriedly struggling, trying desperately trying to get the wheel to move, to pull it any direction than the one it was headed to right now. "Gamora, try to gain control of the missiles, perhaps we can blow it up." Gamora rushed to her station and sat down.

"On it."

Seconds passed, silence coming from us as we hurriedly tried to gain control of the beeping ship. The mountain tops were getting closer.  
"Quill, I've got it." Gamora pushed the button, releasing more missiles. We held our breath, a small smile of hope making it's way onto my face. No way those mountains could withstand those missiles.  
They headed forward, to all of a sudden to curve around and flew right past us, away.

"What the-" Quill stopped.

"Flark!"

They were seconds away now, any second now and we would be crashed into bits by the mountains.

"Quill!"

"I'm trying Drax!"

Drax tried helping Quill now, still finding it jammed. I gasped as the mountain tops came at us, putting my hand over my mouth. I was going to die.  
All of a sudden, Drax stepped in front of me, as if to protect me from any debris that was to come. "Drax what the hell are you-"

I never got to finish. We were at the mountains and I screw my eyes shut, bracing for impact. But it never came. Seconds flew by. Slowly I opened my eyes.

"Huh?"

The mountains were gone. Left in there place was nothing but clear sky. I turned and looked behind us, seeing the mountains. "How did we-"

The Milano suddenly shot downwards.

"We're going down faster than before!" Gamora cried.

I swirled back around, to see that the rather odd ground was coming clearer into view. I could've sworn that I saw the brown bricks that covered all of the seen ground suddenly turn golden in a small area and started to levitate upwards. "Aaahhh!" we yelled, closing our eyes, not sure what to expect. This place was crazy madding.

...

The smoke was fast to dissipate. Rubble was everywhere, coming mainly from the ship's now off wings and destroyed bottom. The wooden wheel had flown straight out , landing on the ground besides the rubbed ship. After a second of silence, a teenage girl, looking around the age of sixteen ,with long straight dark brown hair, leather looking gloves and leather leg warmers upon her light brown pants peaked out her head from her hiding spot behind a small bush of questionable berries, a little brownish yellow and red squirrel with wings following in pursuit, having a small resemblance of a ferret. It squeaked, fire slightly shooting out. The girl turned and put her finger to her mouth. "Shhh!"

I groaned. Slowly opening my eyes and sitting up, I glanced around. The Milano was wrecked mainly in the wings and bottom, but other than that fine. Tall trees of different kinds surrounded the place, small different colored flowers all over the ground, some sprouting up between the brown bricks that covered the ground in some sort of trail. I turned, hearing the others groaning. Drax sat up, groaning as he rubbed his head. Other than having the numbing dizziness that we all had, he seemed fine. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the girl and squirrel ferret looking thing stand up and slowly heading our way. There was suddenly another noise, slightly able to be heard, it was that faint. Turning, I stood up to see the back wall of a cave. There went the noise once more. Someone was knocking.


	7. The Dragon Sanctuary: Gridlocks

Seconds past as nothing seemingly made another noise. It seemed as though time itself had frozen. "Who's there?" I whispered faintly, my body stiffly frozen, cringing only slightly. No one heard, or even seem to exist in that matter, except for that being behind that dasted back wall of the cave, I had a feeling that he did, I-I just knew he had. Something felt wrong.

There was another knock.

My nose twitched. _Why the hell was I whispering?_ It felt as if I had to when I opened my mouth once more, as if something was forcing me back. I closed my mouth, feeling as if I was even able to break past the barrier, that there was still yet another force threatening to strip off the loudness of my voice to a mere whisper like a knife, even if I was to scream at the top of my lungs.

Groot groaned, rubbing his head as he sat up in the rubble alongside Drax, only seconds behind. Moments passed as Groot looked to make sure that his tattooed colleague was fine, till Drax started waving his hand irritably , assuring Groot that he was indeed alright. With only slight fuzzy numbness in his head left, Groot turned, scanning the area for me. He had to make sure, he needed to know that his little buddy was alright. "I am Groot?"

I never heard him.

A sliver of seemly string of ice coldness suddenly flung it's self across my spine, making me cringe more. Something was definitely off, as if something as powerful and old as the galaxy and the cosmos itself had broken, a small yet powerful tear that was rippling throughout space. But in the form of knocking?

Groot turned, seeing me. "I am Groot?"

My body suddenly slowly started to untense, the force and feeling of something huge was holding me frozen both straight and pressing down on the ground, as if I was a toy to a humongous toddler who was playing with me tightly, was now slowly backing down. My shoulders relaxed as the feeling of the ripple died down. I turned to see Groot sitting there. "I am Groot?"

"Yeah yeah, I'm fine, you bud?" I started towards him.

"I am Groot."

I smiled, now besides him. "Good."

The girl and her squirrel ferret creature slowed to a stop behind a now standing up and dusting off Quill. "Hi there."

"Aaahh!" Quill jumped and tumbled forward. The squirrel creature chirped as we all turned to look at the them.

"Oh sorry," the girl said, pushing out her hands slightly. "Didn't mean to frighten."

Quill stood up, dusting himself off once more. "It's alright. Just wasn't expecting... that." The girl nodded before looking past him at us.

"You all alright?"

A chorus of "Yes," and one "I am Groot," answered her.

The girl smiled sheepishly. "Yeah, sorry about that," she motioned over at rubble that was our ship's wings and bottom. "It was the forensic force field up there," she said, glancing up at the sky, which twinkled slightly at the mention of the force field. "It protects the special inhabits here from would be killers and poachers. It's been here for millions of years, keeping this dragon sanctuary and it's inhabits separate from the galaxy itself."

She glanced up again. "It hardly lets anyone in," she whispered.

We all blinked at her staring blankly. "Dragon sanctuary?"

The girl nodded. I looked down at her leather looking gloves and leg warmers now looking more coarse and scaly than before. "As in real, live dragons?" Quill asked, suddenly looking down at the squirrel ferret creature and smiling more and more like as if he had won forty-thousand units. The creature chirped.

"Yep."

"As in real life, fire breathing, scaly, mythological , and fairy tale dragons?"

The girl's expression turned into a confused one. "What's a fairy tale?"

Quill grinned. "Aw man, this is going to be so flarking amazing! I've always wanted to meet a real, live fire breathing dragon."

"Great," I mumbled. "While Quill gets happily burned to a crisp by a 'real, live dragon' we're going to be stuck on this krutacking planet, with no parts!"

"Don't worry," the girl said unexpectedly. I jumped.

"Huh?" Didn't realize anyone could hear, other than Groot.

"Your ship isn't that bad, Bubda can probably fix it."

We all blinked blankly again. "Bubda?"

The girl nodded. "Yeah. I'll take you to him." A second past as the girl suddenly jumped, realization upon her face, the beaming smile never leaving her face. "Oh wait, I haven't introduced myself yet! Sorry, we don't often get many visitors." I looked over at our crushed rubble parts of our ship.

"Yeah, we can tell."

Drax gave me a little shove, as if telling me to shut up. I looked up at him. "What?"

Not hearing my mutter, the girl plopped out a hand excitingly, beaming. "Hi, my name's Catherine, with a k. Katherine S. Knackgerain." The squirrel ferret creature chirped. Katherine bounced down, bending down to his level. "Oh and this is Gethrine." She petted him before looking back up at Quill.

"What does the S. stand for?" Quill asked.

"Stephanie."

Katherine bounced back up, plopping out her hand once more. "Welcome to the Wellsworth Dragon Sanctuary." Quill shook it.

She motioned to the brown brick trail that was heading north, beaming. "Come on, I'll show you the way."

We all glanced at each other before heading off to the trail. Katherine stayed back for a few seconds, as if lost in thought, before racing up to us. "But seriously, what's a fairy tale?"

...

"This is the only dragon sanctuary left in the whole galaxy," Katherine explained turning back to face us, smiling as something flew over our heads, us now walking up the side of a mountain.

I looked up in time to only see the huge green bottom side of the creature and it's humongous wings. I shuddered. Something felt unpleasantly familiar about it...

Katherine turned, starting up again. "I'm the caretaker here. Every dragon sanctuary had one, someone willing to take care of all the dragons here in the sanctuary. I got it from my mother, who was the one before me. It's a grand job here, don't get me wrong, but it sure does get rather lonely," she said, whispering the last bit more to herself than explaining to us. We heard it nevertheless.

Quilll looked troubled. "What happened to all the rest of the dragon sanctuaries?"

"They were destroyed."

"What happened?"

"Many of them were invaded, people coming in and leaving nothing but the dried very core of the planet left behind. It wasn't till they decided to make this last one, did they decide to place the forensic field, created by the very Gemsi themselves, here to protect and separate this sanctuary from the galaxy."

Something out in the corner of my eye started to lift itself upwards. I whirled around to see the bricks that we had been walking on five minutes ago were rising up in the air all by themselves, a gold cover wrapping around them them before starting to switch their places. Some landed, turning back to brown, as some now touching them rose. "The bricks, they're moving," I exclaimed stopped, everyone turning back to me.

"Oh yeah, they do that," Katherine said, starting her way besides me. She squat down, hands on her hips. "They say that the whole sanctuary is alive alongside with the dragons, enchanted. Every single inch. They do this continuously," she said, waving her hand through the switching process in the air. "Making this old walking on a puzzle statement come in. It changes so often, that a person, one like myself who has lived here for years, has never stepped on the same brick in the same location ever."

A brick with a name etched in rose, the name slowly rising off letter by letter in black ink, to leave a floating **Alison Monroe** above the moving bricks. It lowered down to another brick to, changing letter by letter as it lowered onto the brick, now reading: **Christopher Macbeck**.

"Oh, and they also do that. Those names are sacred, coming from the past caretakers of this sanctuary or even names from those themselves who are connected to galaxy and are destined to be placed along it's history, connected forevermore."

"Oh cool," Quill said. "Has by chance the name Guardians of the Galaxy ever shown up?" Katherine looked up at him, eyebrow raised.

"It has failed to yet, but what kind foolish, stupid name is that?"

Quill smiled nervously. "Oh nobody really. Just wondering."

We started to slowly walk past, Katherine still bending over the bricks. She narrowed her eyes at the upcoming name as it rose, appearing out of thin air. A brick rose up to have it etched in. "Ryan Quill/ Downstorm. Hmmm, what kind of name is that?" she whispered. Getting up, she raced to catch up.

...

Strangely as we made our way closer to the top of the mountain, I noticed that instead of a normal pointed mountain top, there was instead a medium size slab of land stretching out into the air. Getting there, I saw that the trail continuing on it came to a stop in the center, where it curled up like a snake. A small nice green hut with a brownish yellow roof was only a few yards behind. A few trees were spaced around the edges behind it.

Upon reaching the slab, Katherine stopped, and motioned towards the hut with her outstretched hand. "And there it is, the Wellsworth Dragon Sanctuary Caretaker Quarters." Gethrine chirped happily before racing over to the hut. Katherine giggled before racing after him.

Reaching the hut, Gethrine stopped and turned to face us, wagging his tail like a happy dog.

Slowing down her gait as she reached the gait, Katherine chuckled before reaching for the doorknob. "Alright Gethrine, you can go in."

Opening the door, she turned and motioned us to come in.

Walking inside, even a person like me had to gasp...faintly. What looked like a small hut a real sad place, inferring that it apparently had to house two people, well one Katherine and some Bubda, and an apparent dragon squirrel ferret creature, now was huge inside, reminding me non fondly of those doctor offices Groot had taken, a.k.a forced, me to go to the first time my implants got infected after we met.

Two sets of small spiral stairs went upwards into the second floor, with two rooms to the right, one closed with a door that just brought the sense of pride and importance while the other was wide open. To the left, one large room was slightly seen, as well as the one last room slightly open right dab in the middle of the sets of stairs.

"Wow, talk about using your room wisely," I whispered, placing my paw upon a counter, using it as some sort of supporter as I pressed onward to the side of the door.

Through the room in the middle of the set of stairs a faint noise could be heard playing. _"Joy to the world,all the boys and girls, Joy to the world, Joy to you and me..."_

Quill grinned. "Is that...?"

Katherine grinned, and ran to open the door more slightly. "Yeah. Joy to the World by Three Dog Night." She went in and came out with a small, old radio fitting in the grasp of both her hands. "Due to the forensic force field up in the atmosphere, it messes with any signals, not letting them in. However one day, this manged to get in." She nodded to the beat of the song. She paused. "I wonder who moved it into this room," she muttered, clearly making it known that she knew due to the expression written on her face, before going back to nodding to the song. _"You know I love the ladies,Love to have my fun,I'm a high night flier and a rainbow rider, A straight-shootin' son of a gun, What you say? I said a straight shootin' son of a gun."_

"Yes, but sadly due to the force field up there again, the signals are trapped in here, repeating that song forevermore," a grumpy voice drawled. We looked to the right to see a giant dark green slug creature sliding his way up to us from the closed room, holding a book in his arm and making it look like you would have to fight him to the death to take it. Katherine stopped nodding to the song, looking up and seeing him. She smiled softly. "Oh come on Bubda, you have to admit it's better than having nothing."

Bubda adjusted his spectacles. "I can admit that I preferred the silence in my library beforehand more," he simply stated before walking past us and heading into the room to the left.

Katherine looked back at us and smiled sheepishly. "Ignore him, he doesn't like visitors. But that's Bubda, the Wellsworth Dragon Sanctuary's librarian. "

She glanced back at the room Bubda had just walked into. "Come on," she waved,"I bet you're starving."

...

Walking into the closet of a room, Katherine paused, waiting for all of us before opening the other door at the end of the room to reveal a small, yet nice dinning room. A nice glass dining table with a hint of fake gold filled up the middle of the room, several chairs surrounding it, two large brown display cases filled with nice plates, nice silverware, and small cook books. Bubda sat on one of the chairs as if waiting, a bored expression on his face.

Katherine motioned to the swinging doors. "Inside there is the kitchen. You're welcome to make anything you like."

We all started that way. Bubda looked up, looking noninterested, at me. "You might want to wait, small rodent. I have learned that once two or more people enter that room to cook for themselves, the longer it takes." My lips twitched into a snarl, however decided to sit down as said.

Not a word was passed between us as Groot passed me into the kitchen, and we waited as everyone else was in there. My stomach rumbled, making me look down at it. I was hungry, it still being early in the morning and not having ate breakfast yet. I silently growled, hoping one of them would hurry up.

Drax came out of the swinging doors, carrying a small bowl of red soup. He walked up to me to say," Young kilt."

Drax slowly then laid down his bowl in front of me before smiling and walking off into the kitchen again to get one of his own. I leaned over it, stunned.

An eyebrow raised, I sniffed it curiously before picking up a spoon and trying a sip. It was good. A second past before I started to scarf it down.

Peter and Katherine soon entered through the swinging doors, Bubda now getting up and going in to get something, sighing. Soon more were coming in and out getting something to eat or to add, me taking no notice of it.

Katherine pulled her fork out of her mouth and swallowed before pointing it at Peter slightly. "But what are you guys even doing here in the atmosphere?"

Peter swallowed his toast before reaching into his pants pocket and pulling out his boom box. "For this. We need one last Pandorian crystal, and we were told that this is the place to find it."

Katherine thought for a moment, her eyes catching Gamora now sitting besides Peter and Drax coming in. "Pandorian crystal..., Pandorian crystal, where have I heard that before..." Her eyes light up. "By any chance you mean a small bright crystal that is either purple or blue?"

Quill smiled. "Yeah."

"I know where that is! The Ravenquervons have it!"

Peter raised an eyebrow, confused. "The what?"

"The Ravenquervons, a type of bird dragons at the sheltered at the edge of the sanctuary. They're huge and walk on two legs, with the gigantic black form and red eyes of a raven itself. They have the crystal, been having it for many years in a some sort of a small shrine. I could take you guys to them if you want."

"That would be great, but them using it as something to worship and you being the caretaker, it sounds a little odd that you would help us," Quill said.

Katherine shrugged. "Oh the one reason they worship that crystal is because it's _shiny!_ " she stated, saying the last word as perhaps an animated bird would on a TV show in Quill's opinion. "Besides, I've been wanting to get rid of that crystal for years, you haven't seen how they worship..." she looked slightly down, , her pupils in her eyes slightly getting smaller out of fear. "It ain't right," she whispered. Peter glanced over at us, us nodding in return. Hell, we'll get the get the crystal!

Peter looked back at Katherine. "Alright, we're in."

Katherine nodded. "However, I can't protect all of you. I'm protect by the fact that I am the caretaker here, the creatures here can't hurt me. However, anyone entering the sanctuary on my behalf or not, I have to let the creatures decide. Some may like you, and some may not. Many creatures here that are like the Ravenquervons aren't known for their likeness on humans, or anyone other than their kind. And they will not hesitate to rush up and kill, many placing them in the evil department, even my mother used to call them the black angles of the devil. So if you do all agree to this, know that I can't help you if they wish to kill you."

I grinned, patting one of my jumpsuit's pockets to feel my pocket dimension vial, full of every weapon in the known universe. Let those Ravenquervons come.

Peter nodded on our behalf. "We'll go."

Katherine nodded. "Alright." She turned to face Bubda. "And while we're gone, you can fix their ship, fine Bubda?"

Bubda's eyes narrowed even more, looking even more annoyed. "Fine. Just don't expect me to do everything correctly happily."

...

The sound of chirping soon got louder as we got closer. We were now walking down a trail to the Ravenquervons. Gethrine chirped again, louder. A chirp not to far away soon answered. "Dragons used to be here," Katherine explained. "However, one day a different creature called the gridlock arrived here."

I stopped. "Gridlock?"

Katherine turned back to face me. "Yeah. A giant green lizard looking creature, like a komodo d-"

"Yeah, I know what they are!" I snarled, waving my hand, brushing her away. I started up again. _Gridlocks?_

In my mind the scene played once more, that night I wasn't eaten by the gridlock due to me being too much of a freak. I could still feel his breath as he spoke with his hungry and raspy cruel voice as I cowered underneath him, stuck as his tongue touched me every time he opened his mouth. It had been a dark night in that ally, too dark for even him too see. It was just another night however in my life before I found Groot it seemed, me looking for anything, any food scrap I could eat. Suddenly something leaped upon me, hissing before licking me all over. I had squirmed mainly out of fear, too frozen in fear to really run away if I had the chance. For I could see his outline perfectly. His face moved closer and closer downwards towards me. A-and now he was going to eat me. "What's your name, freak?" he growled. I scanned my brain, saying the first word that came into mind. "R-rocket."

"Well Rocket, I'm going to let you live, you know why? Because you're a disgusting freak of nature and there isn't anyway I'm going to eat you." He raised up a claw and scratched me on the cheek. "I was planing to however a minute ago." He laughed as I squirmed, trying to break free. "Pathetic. Don't worry, I'm sure someone will be desperate enough to eat you soon, hungry enough to help you end your pathetic stupid life." After slamming my head into the ground once more, he got off me and left into the darkness.

"We let them in," Katherine said, me now slowing coming out of my thoughts. "But gridlocks, unlike dragons, don't age. It seemed fine at first, but over the age of time the dragons aged and died out with the gridlocks not. This is now truly a gridlock sanctuary."

I looked down once again at her leather looking gloves and leg warmers. Katherine noticed my glance. "Yes, this is dragon hide, but off of a dead one. I remember helping my mother gutting so many of them in those days, feeding them later to the gridlocks," she whispered, but we nevertheless heard once again. Katherine shot her head up, placing a widening smile on her face. "However, it isn't the complete end of the dragons. Back in the age where the larger ones were dying out, a few of the smaller ones breeded with other small creatures found in the sanctuary. " As we reach the top of a small hill, I saw that there was a huge group of squirrel ferret creatures just like Gethrine. They all chirped happily. Gethrine smiled it seemed, before racing down the hill, cuddling with one of the closest ones. "They've breeded with small animals like squirrels and ended up like this. Gethrine is one of the these, an apchoninon, coming from an apcoin dragon and a squirrel. They aren't truly dragons anymore however."

One squeaked, looking up at me before dropping the acorn he was holding, and rushing up to me. His eyes were wide, curious. He squeaked again. "Um, hi,"I said nervously. It's eyes widened more now, but with fear before squeaking once more, running away as far as he could. "Great," I thought. "Even in the world of fire breathing dragon squirrels, I was odd."

"Awwww, they're cute," Peter said, noticing some of the younger ones. He bent down, reaching out a hand. One hiccuped, flames shooting out. "Aaaaa!"

I chuckled. But I liked them.

Suddenly a loud crisp yell filled the air, making all of us jump and turn in the direction of the noise. Off in the distance, you could see the cave I had heard knocking from, and that was where it seemed to be coming from. The apchoninons that surrounded us, rushed behind us, cowering behind our legs.

"What was that?" Quill asked.

Katherine turned away from the cave, back to us. "It's the yell of the oldest gridlock known in the universe. He's dying."

Our eyes widened. "What? You said they don't age!"

"They don't," Katherine said worriedly. "He is the only one that does. The one from the beginning of time."

A loud caw filled the air. Katherine gasped and looked up. "It's the Ravenquervons!"

I looked up, my mouth opening. Though I would never admit to it, they were creepy.

Their bodies were huge, each wing about fifteen feet long, all covered in sharp black feathers, their eyes though far up could be seen easily, a sharp evil red. Their talons were huge, each one the size of one of Drax's largest swords, connecting to long legs as tall as Quill. I reached down into my jumpsuit pocket, ready to pull out a gun.

They circled around two more times before heading sharply down like an arrow. At me.

As I quickly pulled out my plasma blaster, one came extremely close, moving his talons to scope me up. A sudden shot pushed him to the side, dead. I looked over at Quill. "Eh, I have to thank him," I thought, right before another swooped down behind me, barely missing. But later.

Gamora and Drax swung their weapons while Peter and I shot. "How many of them are there?" Quill cried. "At first I only saw two!" True. Now in the place of two giant crow raven beasts were about thirty, if not forty.

"I don't know!" Katherine cried, bending down as one struck at Gamora, who was right next to her. Gamora swung, cutting off his legs. "They tend to always multiply, always coming in great herds to help another."

I aimed at the Ravenquervon coming at me, creating a hole in his stomach, or at least where there was once a stomach. I grinned. "That's alright by me!"

Quill turned, startled to see two Ravenquervons coming from behind at me. "Rocket, behind you!" he cried, getting ready to aim. Another Ravenquervon swooped down at Quill, scratching Quill's arms with his talons slightly, making Quill drop his blaster.

"Rocket, behind you!" was all I heard and saw however. Turning around, I was just in time to see them in the faces as they lifted me upwards, one tearing away my plasma blaster from my grasp with a talon. "Aaaaaa!" I screamed.

A chorus of "Rocket!", one "I am Groot!" , and one "Young kilt!" rang out as they carried me away.

Drax started rushing forwards. "We have to stop them!"

Katherine rushed and slid to a stop before him. "Stop, can't you see? They're too far away! Besides, even if one of you can shoot that far, you might hit Rocket."

Drax calmed down a little bit, before pushing out one of his knifes at Katherine's throat. "We have to stop them."

"Whoa, whoa!" Quill cried, getting between the two. "Drax, she's right. For such large birds, they sure can fly fast." He whirled around at Katherine. "Is there anyway you could force them to give him back?"

Katherine shock her head. "No, I just have the protection over myself, I told you I can't force them to do anything if they wish to kill another. Unless,... we have to get that Pandorian crystal!"

"What, why is that at the top of your to do list now?" Quill said.

Drax made a confuse expression, before letting it turn into one made of anger. "Why are we making a list of to do, when we have to save the young kilt!"

Katherine pushed her hands out slightly. "Trust me. I told you they worship the darn thing, right? Well, we could sneak in there, steal it, and once you guys take a picture or something quickly, we use it to trade for Rocket."

"How do we know he won't be eaten by then?" Gamora asked.

"They don't eat till night, it's a weird thing yes, but they do it. We have until the sun goes down to get that crystal. Trust me. I know this doesn't sound like it, but this is the only way to rescue Rocket."

Drax slowly lowered his sword.

...

"Let me go, you oversized bastards!" I yelled as I struggled to get free. Finally getting a good hold of one of their wings, I scratched them. One howled with pain, dropping me as the other used one of their feet to hold onto me. Strangely never once did a talon press up against my arm it held. Swinging myself slightly, I manged to grab hold of it's leg with my free hand and scratched. Yelping, it dropped me.

"Oh crap, I didn't think this through!" I thought as I started to fall back to the ground.

A loud caw made me look up to see Ravenquervons going downwards at me. I struggled against them, trying to put a hand in my jumpsuit pocket at the same time, but to no prevail. They grab a strong hold of me, right before I hit the ground. I looked up from the ground to see that I was at the entrance of the cave.

One of the Ravenquervons cawed. A loud yell came streaming through the cave, blowing my fur back. I shut my eyes as some went into them. The Ravenquervons cowardly shivered before dropping me and flying off.

I coughed as air filled with dirt flew into my nose. I lifted my head off the ground as another yell was bellowed. Standing up, I rubbed the dirt out of my eyes.

I turned around, searching to see if I could perhaps see any of the Guardians. "Quill?" I yelled. "Gamora? Groot?" I sighed. "Drax?" Nobody.

I turned back around. "Who the hell was knocking earlier?" I whispered. It still felt as if some one was in there, in fact the feeling was now only growing stronger. Pulling out another weapon out of my pocket dimension vial, I started to walk in.

...

It was dark inside, with only a slight sliver of the light reaching the deepness of the cave I was now in. Slowly, not seeing anything in the dim light, I placed the gun upon my back. I turned as I suddenly heard something move on the large rock to my side, something like a claw scratching it. I turned around to my other side however as I heard the knock once more coming from inside the wall it seemed. One last time, I whispered,"Who's there?"


	8. The Dragon Sanctuary: (The) Gridlock Prophecy

There wasn't another knock, and the feeling fled as if the being inside the wall had heard and been frightened off. There was another long scratch upon the large rock beside me, as if a rather long toenail was dragging itself across the rock's surface. I turned, my eyes now slowly starting to adjust to the dim light better. I could now see the huge outline of a gridlock like creature, it's body turned to the side while it's head was staring right down at me.

The shady grayish green scaly parts that I could make out and it's gigantous wings revealed that it was indeed a gridlock, a very dark green one.

"Pity such a youngster had to walk in here, I've always enjoyed killing those who are much older, ready to end their lives out of stupidly or so called bravely, instead of those with a semi-bright looking future ahead of them...Oh well."

I slowly started to pull my gun off my back, not making a noise, feeling as if afraid that he might just see it. I lined it up and put my finger on the trigger. Out of a much darker corner, the dying gridlock's tail snapped up, lunging itself at the trigger guard , wrapping itself around it quickly before ripping it out of my grasp and hurling it across the cave in only a matter of seconds. It slammed into the other side wall and fell to the ground, broken to pieces. I blinked dumbfounded, before turning back to face him. "How the hell-"

"I am the oldest gridlock, having been born long before the waning of our eyesight and the adaption of our tongues,"the dying gridlock said, while turning the rest of his body to align with his head, groaning slightly in pain. He glanced at the wall silently before turning back to stare at me. "And needless to say it seems, you're not the only one who could hear the knocking."

"What is it?" I asked, slightly shocked at how he could have heard it, knowing that none of my Guardian teammates had heard earlier, them(especially Peter for that matter) would having had asked about it.

The dying gridlock chuckled softly, as if recalling some good old memory. " I thought you for one would know. However, it is the only reason I'm still alive. I am yet a set of tickings, a warning, of the Celestial Clock, set only to live till it comes, the Gridlock Prophecy."

A second of silence started to quickly pass by. Here it was, my best chance of escape, however something new held me back. A new feeling that was slowly creeping in. Curiosity.

I wanted to know about the Gridlock Prophecy. Why the hell was I the only nongridlock to have heard it? Did it have to do something with the experiments? The tests where as I didn't know what the hell was going through my veins, strapped down on that damned white metal table? It wasn't sometime that I had ever thought back to willingly, often being forced back there in nightmares, and long ago, flashbacks. However, it was the only reason I could think off hand. It could, of course, however only be a trap by this gridlock, to slowly lower one's guard.

"The Gridlock Prophecy?"

Curiosity won.

I lifted my paw however, landing it softly upon my jumpsuit pocket. And if he decided to attack...

"Yes. The prophecy of a lifetime. Created thousands of millenniums ago back on my home planet by the Professor Gutentag , when I was yet just a child, it pick me to be it's host, to live as it's holder till the end of this peaceful era. Throughout the thousands of millenniums, it had been told as a story to younger gridlocks and have been spread throughout the galaxy earning different names by others, such as the white-striped tailed raccoon prophecy."

The feeling was starting to return, slowly pouring itself more and more into me as he continued on. The feeling of having to leave, to escape, was slowly flowing away, to be replaced with that feeling ,making me stay, making it seem that it was just wrong to leave now. However, I soon realized that it wasn't that much of a feeling but a connection, I felt tied to the prophecy as the words came out of the dying gridlock's mouth. There was a rope between us that I didn't understand, feeling as if it could be about me.

"How does it go?"

"It is stated as:

_**The one that stands above all** _

_**will one day fall,** _

_**the Celestial Clock will then tick through a time, a time where he will be forgotten,** _

_**a time of peace.** _

_**However, there is a way for him to return.** _

_**Born in the late 1900s** _

_**a Terran mammal shall be raised from the ground, shy and cowardly.** _

_**As a short time goes on,** _

_**it shall receive the most deadly of torture,** _

_**only as more time is passed will it's strip in the tail shall turn white.** _

_**With care, it will be brought to the knees of it's master,** _

_**The blood of the creature would then be harvested in the most feared death,** _

_**Causing the one to rise up once more, for one can not live will the other survives** _

_**It's death will be the beginning of the downfall of our kind...,** _

_**As one life re-begins, the creature's will end, neither can live while the other survives,** _

_**Once it's death occurs,** _   
_**The universe shall be plunged into eternal darkness..."** _

There was a second of silence following as that sunk in. So that was what it was all about. But a thousands of millenniums old prophecy represented by a couple of sets of knocking? It sounded as odd as hell. But I being able to hear it and having an odd connection feeling with it, now that was even odder.

I breathed in heavily. "I feel as if I have some sort of connection with it," I said, feeling rather stupid as I said it.

"Many have said to have felt it. All of us gridlocks can feel it, for we are all connected to it really." The dying gridlock paused and turned to look at the once knocking wall.

A second passed before he turned back to stare down at me. You have been licked by a gridlock before, no?"

My eyes slightly widened. "H-how the hell?"

"I'm the dying gridlock. Not the idiot."

He shot his neck down suddenly, striking out his huge tongue and licking me across my face. I stumbled back, wiping the spit off my face. "What the hell was that for?"

The dying gridlock held his head up, his features that I could make out on his face making it look like as if he was sucking on his tongue. "Ah, Norbert was it. He was never one for formality, " he said ,eyes narrowed as if in slight disgust.

Again, I whined,"What the hell was that for?"

He lowered his head to stare right back down at me again. "Down in a dark alley?"

The memory of the gridlock jumping on me flashed through my mind. "How did you?"

"Gridlocks posses the ability to link our kind with others through licking, creating those called gridlock clan. It is how the Gridlock Prophecy was passed throughout the galaxy. They are exceedingly rare these days though. Though licked, it does not stop the aging of your lower species' body, and today's generation are much more like Norbert, eat or kill before lick and clan. It creates the connection, however. This explains why I thought one such as you would already know, though young and unknowing as you seem now explains that you had no master on teaching you about this.'

' But going back to the matter on hand, once licked, other gridlocks can tell who had licked you beforehand by licking you once again such as I did."

I growled softly, wiping my face in disgust. "Warn someone next time."

...

"It shouldn't be far now, only up this hill and a little more," Katherine said, leading the other Guardians on the trail to the Ravenquervons' domain .

Quill looked over to his side, where he could see the grass and flowers that covered the hill nonstop, leading down to the valley where they had been only been moments ago. Looking down, he glanced at his now covered up scratched up arm, the other one being almost completely alright except for a tiny scar, and sighed. It was around mid-morning now, the heat just starting to come badly now, making it even worse it seemed. Even though Katherine had said that they only eat at night, Quill couldn't help feeling worried that with every passing second , I'd been eaten. He had promised Rhomann Dey that he would watch over them. He felt that they were now his family, his crazy, weird, and dysfunctional family. He had been the one to have told everyone about the Subject 89P13 side of me. It wasn't his fault that I was captured by the Ravenquervons, no it was their fault as Katherine would had said, but it sure as hell felt like it was the other way around. He hadn't yelled loud enough.

But they were going to get me back. And it wasn't the promise to Rhomann Dey that made Quill move his legs forward, oh no, and it wasn't the guilt he felt for telling about the Subject 89P13 side of me, nor being part of the crazy family. It was the feeling of protection, feeling that he had to protect everyone on the dam team, starting on the day we left Xandar in the new Milano. It had laid hidden, not sprouting up till he had found out about Subject 89P13 and felt, no knew, that I had to know. It was a feeling that everyone seemed to have now as Quill glanced at his teammates. They were all going to get me back.

A loud flapping snapped Peter out of his thoughts. Looking up, his eyes widened as he saw the two green humongous wings flap downwards into the valley, landing a huge green komodo dragon looking creature. Striking out it's huge tongue, it struck them all like a whip, snapping back into his mouth in a matter of seconds. A sneering smile grew from his lips as he made the look as if he was sucking on his tongue "Visitors. Ah, don't get many of those."

Peter grimaced as he wiped his face off. "Ew, gross."

Katherine stepped tentatively towards him, concern easily able to read upon her features. "Norbert, please."

Norbert narrowed his eyes at her derisively. " Come on Katherine," he said, his voice lowering with every syllable as he looked down upon her. A devilish grin started to form on his face. " You know I can do however I please, and besides," He paused for a second while the grin on his face only seemed to grown. " I haven't had breakfast yet."

He snapped his neck over to where we stood, to somehow glare right at us in the eyes. "Friends of the little freak, I see. I had the chance to eat him once, didn't want to chance ruining my younger self's bowel."Quill's eyes narrowed slightly as well as Gamora's . They knew exactly who the hell he was talking about. " I really should've though, I really did miss a chance."

Quill raised an eyebrow slightly as the last part was said, Norbert looking down at the ground as if he was now discovering or realizing something in that matter. In a matter of seconds however, his head was risen up again at them, narrowing his eyes.

Gamora and Drax silently pulled out their weapons, Quill just pulling it out noisily, not really caring if the gridlock heard him at this point. The feeling of protection was coming in now in huge amounts, his eyes narrowing in hatred even more and his glare turning hard enough to kill. He had insulted me, insulted his family right in front of him and, by the looks of it, would eat me if they weren't fast enough. Hadn't I suffered enough was the question that rang through his blanking mind as he got ready to fight. Apparently not, his mind soon answered as he put his finger on the trigger.

Even though it seemed unwise to fight the giant beast, if triggered to he would. It didn't seem like it was about to let them pass, plus the fact that he wanted to now eat me just added to the possibility of them fighting. It seemed like an impossible creature to fight, as if nothing they did would work to kill it, due to it's huge size and overbearing intimidating demeanor. Knowing it most likely wasn't about to die, Quill thought back to his team. He would fight to not only protect his fellow teammates who were there now, but for me as well in later time it seemed.

Katherine started to take a few tentative steps backwards, sensing what was about to happen.

Not a single word was spoken, daring the other to move first. Even if Quill's mix tape was on at this time, it wasn't for once due to shutting off during the crash in the atmosphere, not one would have moved to turn it off nor sing to it. It didn't seem like a good time for a dance off, even if it had been a good distraction the last time, especially since now the beast couldn't see him.

A few more seconds of sharp tension passed, broken suddenly as the tongue was brought out again, hurling Drax high into the sky to land a few yards behind them.

Gamora started running towards him, not making a noise. Out of nowhere, the tongue was struck out again, pushing her off to the side. "How can he do that?" Peter asked as he raised his elemental blaster and aimed. "You told us gridlocks are blind, aren't able to see anything but the thing they just licked for a few seconds!" He shot.

Katherine stepped inches away worriedly from Groot as he swung down, growing his arms all the way underneath the gridlock to bust the ground open and grab. A few branches manged to string on before Norbert got the gesture, flapping his wings slightly. He raised up slightly, striking at Quill. "He must still be able to hear and sense your presence ."

Gamora landed near Katherine from another strike, Quill landing on the ground not too far away with a loud oof. "Who is this guy?" could be heard mumbling out from him.

Gamora leaned a little, looking like any second now she was going to leap again. "And how does he know about Rocket?"

"That's Norbert. Like many of the gridlocks here now, he wasn't born here, having flown his way here. His past is mostly unknown." Katherine cringed as the tongue swung close by to hit Gamora, only missing by a few millimeters. "He hasn't ever been known as one of the nice ones though."

Drax grunted as he swung down on the gridlock's shoulder, not even causing the slightest scratch however. Flipping over onto his back due to the sudden flapping from Norbert, he turned his head slightly to look at us. "Who cares if he isn't know as one of the nice ones, he insisted hurt upon the young kilt!"

Norbert swung his head down, striking out his tongue to wrap Drax's figure up in it before swinging his head forward and releasing. Quill looked up and watched as Drax flew almost all the way to the top of the hill. He whistled. "Well there goes one good home run."

"But nobody does that to my team!" Quill said, aiming again before shooting. Only to cause slight pain it seemed, with the gridlock growling loudly and shaking his head in annoyance. Rising his head slowly, it roared at Peter and Groot.

"Oh boy," Quill whispered. Norbert started to rise.

Pushing his front legs towards them he started to break the still clinging roots from Groot. The tongue was swung out again, striking at Quill.

His eyes widened as it came at him, barely dunking in time to make it go over his head, messing up a few standing up bristles of his hair. "Whoa!"

The impact and force however, was so great and strong that it knocked him onto the ground. Quill glanced up as a crackling noise was made, the tongue was turning and now headed right back at him full speed.

It was right above him when suddenly it flopped downwards, falling on top of him. The gridlock could be heard howling angrily in pain.

Groaning in disgust, Peter got started to work at getting the disgusting heavy, saliva and blood soaked, and floppy tongue off of himself. Freeing his face, he saw Gamora standing above him, sword raised.

He smiled and breathed in heavily. "Thanks."

Gamora gave a short nod, a small smile escaping her lips.

Wiggling his torso free, Quill sat up and laughed at the gridlock.

" Ha, ha turd blossom! "

The remaining tongue struck out, hitting Gamora, throwing her yards away. Groot started towards Norbert.

Pulling the tongue off of him, Quill hurriedly got up, grabbing his baster and firing. It did no effect.

Reaching the gridlock's legs, Groot swung at the beast , to be suddenly grabbed by the arm in closed, gritted teeth. Norbert raised his head, forcing Groot to face him eye to eye .

Watching this, Drax grunted slightly before pulling his blade slightly behind him, managing to cut right through some rather tall yellow weeds with green tops.

Groot struggled to no prevail, his arm was stuck in the hole between two rather long and sharp teeth. Norbert grunted before he started to swing him up and down. Opening his mouth, Groot was freed, but swung up high into the air as the gridlock waited patiently down below, just awaiting to swallow him whole. Drax started to race forward.

Quill started forwards, shooting rapidly, noticing Gamora racing behind him.

Stopping, he continued on shooting as Gamora raced onward to jump up and swing at Norbert, only to swatted away by the tail again.

"I am Groot, I am Groot, I am Groot!" Groot cried frantically as he started to fall back downwards. His arm was the first to reach the gridlock's mouth.

Right before Norbert had closed his mouth completely, Drax jumped. Norbert, sensing this, bit down, only ending up grabbing hold of Groot's left arm. Drax grabbed onto Groot, ending up hanging on by his torso.

Quill paused for a second just to glance at the odd sight of Groot hanging there, Drax holding onto him. Growling madly, Norbert swung his head, breaking off Groot's arm. "I am Groot!" Groot cried as he was thrown far behind Norbert and into the valley.

Drax, on the other hand, was not thrown, having jumped towards the gridlock right before the swung. Landing right on his lips, Drax started hurriedly racing upwards before the tongue was struck out again.

Reaching the top of Norbert's head, he leaped off, dagger point heading for the back of the neck.

Shaking his head to clear the odd and humorous sight, Quill aimed but never shot. Norbert suddenly howled in pain, his neck falling down slowly like a inflatable house in Quill's opinion. His eyes slammed shut.

Seconds past before Peter slowly lowered his gun. "What.. , just happened?"

Drax jumped up, pulling his dagger out of the gridlocks flesh, ecstatically. "I have just finished off the beast!"

Gamora lowered her sword, Katherine stepping slightly closer towards Norbert. "But how? They're impossible to kill!" Her eyes narrowed in interest as a drop of something fell off of Drax's risen dagger. "Unless..."

She headed forwards to take hold of Drax's dagger. Running a line over it with her finger, she reached the point. Lifting her finger to her lips, she sucked on it.

Quill raised an eyebrow. "That's not odd."

Ignoring him, Gamora asked, "Unless what?"

Katherine took it out and raised the dagger. " Unless this killed it . It's Wildmutpfuf."

"Wildmutpfuf?" Gamora asked. Katherine nodded.

"Yeah," she motioned over to the tall yellow weeds with the green tops that Drax had cut earlier," It's Wildmutpfuf. Alongside with making their food with sunlight and regular stuff, their bodies produce this liquid as another food source." She looked down at the dagger. "I wonder how it manged to kill Norbert, even with the knife going in there it wouldn't have harmed him." There was a pause as she turned it, studying it. " It shouldn't have hurt him, they usually eat Wildmtpfuf in gulps, as if afraid it would pop right back into the ground so it couldn't have been poisonous to him...," she looked up at us again. "Right?"

Quill shrugged before turning to glance over his teammates.

Groot had lost his left arm, now walking back towards them with a little stub growing slightly in it's place instead, Gamora was covered in small amounts of blood and sweat, Quill himself was covered in sweat and dirt, and Drax was now, well, Drax.

They had just gone through all that trouble, just for me, and it looked like it was something they wouldn't mind doing again in Quill's mind as he looked them over, making him smile slightly. He had a good team." No," he suddenly thought, shaking his head slightly. A great family.

However, if they did manged to save me, it didn't see like an accomplishment they should brag to me about or even seem like a necessity they needed to tell me about, seeing how I already was with my past. Though it being a while since the discovery of the Subject 89P13 side , Quill still felt unsure about it, not knowing for sure what would happen, or how I'll react to it. Glancing over at Drax and Gamora one last time, he made up his mind. "We don't tell Rocket about this." They all nodded.

The rest of the trip up the hill and a little more was easy and silent after the little but deadly skirmish they had just gotten into. Perhaps it would be easy for the rest of the trip was the thought that appeared in Quill's head as they neared the Ravenquervons' domain.

Or perhaps not appeared as they reached the domain.

Stepping one foot into it, Peter recalled something from his childhood. He had always remembered that stupid saying, at least it was in his opinion, that the grass is always greener on the the other side, mostly from teachers and others from school, but this was ridiculous.

As soon as they stepped in, he noticed. It may have been odd to another due to all the strange things that was at this domain to notice it first, however he did. As soon as his leg got swallowed by the tall lush green grass, he looked down.

From a short sickish looking yellowish green to a sudden lush tall green , only separated by what seemed to be an invisible line was odd. But it wasn't that what made ice chills move through his body as he forced himself to move his other foot forward, oh no, it was what fertilized it. Fresh, newly laid blood was splattered around, drier blood looking as if it was slowly going back in to the ground in the few small spots that no grass grew. Looking up, he saw the bodies, the Ravenquervon's corpses lying in few small piles, stacked upon each other as they were placed throughout, dried and wet blood trinkled downwards from their cuts and bruises. Thousands of flies flew around the rotting flesh.

Looking up slightly higher as he took another step, Quill noticed the pole made structure, looking quite like a swing set without the swing in Quill's opinion. There were two chains that went downwards, making it look even more like it except for the things they were used for instead of swinging.

Hooked up to one of the chains was a freshly dead Ravenquervon, his chest cut so that his blood ran freely downwards, and would slightly swing a little due to the way he was hooked up. As the chain went downwards, it slowly broke into two separate thin chains, connecting at each end on the Ravenquervon's chest.

The other chain was pulled every couple of minutes by another Ravenquervon, a much bigger and sharper looking one in matter of fact, pulled it upwards, as if offering the dead Ravenquervon as a sacrifice.

Every time he would let go, the apparent priest rushed slightly backwards to join his fellow worshipers on the ground.

"Hals crules lush Quetzalcoatl freng crunw mung," was muttered numerous times by the small crowd before the process was started all over again.

Not too far away on the left of them were more Ravenquervons, cutting themselves with a knife slightly before watching it drip down and muttering some more odd religious seeming words. Quill turned to look at the sudden black thing that had appeared in the corner of his eye. As he turned to see the forever seeming line of old, thick, and entangled line of trees, the thing disappeared. A second past before it came out again. It was the end of a Ravenquervon's wing.

It was pulled back from where it came, with occasionally one or more coming out to be pulled back in, as if the Ravenquervons were doing some sort of dance despite all the wrongness around them.

Taking another step forward, he looked past the cutters and noticed that more Ravenquervons were about, doing odd and wrong religious practices as far down as the eye could see. Turning to the right(almost tripping as he stepped suddenly down into a small, unseen dip in the ground, covered up by all the tall grass) he was to see that it was the same, down to the long line to trees.

Feeling as though being watched, Quill turned back to looked at the left side to see one of the blood cutters looking up and now watching, looking Quill right in the eye. Quill jerked his head down, to avoid eye contact.

"No wonder Katherine said that how they worship ain't right," Peter thought as a cold shiver rushed through him, "This is horrible!"

Had he still been a lone Ravenger, he would have left and waited till night. But they couldn't leave, he couldn't leave. They had to get me , he didn't want to leave me in a place like this. Looking up slightly, he noticed that some of his other teammates were shivering as well. Groot was out of horrification, while Drax's was out of anger. Quill raised his eyebrow slightly. It surprised him how Drax was acting today. Drax suddenly just seemed to become over protective of me, looking like any minute he was about to lash out at those who had kidnapped me. He thought back to the night where they had caught Drax tucking me in with those blankets, but to Quill , at the time, it didn't mean too much, but it was obviously meaning something more.

Stepping out of the dip, he noticed it. In the corner of his eye was something grayish, built growing upwards like some kind of shrine. Looking up a little, he could see it better, far on the left side of him was it, the shrine. Hardly something to noticed far away, all he could see was the gray rocks, the size and shape of blocks, stacked upon each other to make a rather small hardly noticeable thing. It sure didn't really look like a shrine. But he felt as if, no he knew, that was indeed the shrine.

Putting her hands into her pant's pockets, Katherine leaned back slightly to reach Quill's ear. "Alright," she muttered," Here's what I think we should do. I'll go in there and pretend to join them, they've been trying to get the caretakers to join them in prayer for centuries, distracting them long enough for you to go to the shrine and swap the crystal. You guys then run off into the trees carefully, as I pull them to the shrine for them to notice that something is wrong. They won't believe us if we tried to trade for Rocket without knowing that the rock is already missing."

"It does not bother you that you are taking part of another religion?" Drax asked.

"Nope. 'Cause everyone but them will know that I don't mean it. I'm just helping you save your friend and getting rid of that crystal."

"But won't they make you do something to join them or prove yourself, like kill something and sacrifice it to their god or something?" I said, slightly bending lower to reach her level better.

A second passed as Katherine showed that she was taking that into her plan.

"Okay, I'll say I'll try it out, they won't do anything just like that to scare me off yet."

"And what about the crystal?" Gamora whispered. "When we trade it for Rocket, won't they realize that you helped steal it? Won't that break the rule of protection that you have hanging over your head? At the least they'll despise you, and kill off everything that you love that isn't protected as well."

That was when Gethrine decided to move up his little head upwards at them, smiling. He chirped. Like a little four year old it seemed, he couldn't understand what was going on right now.

Katherine glanced back at Gamora and smiled weakly. "It'll be okay. Like I told you earlier, I've always wanted to get rid of that crystal already for years. Now there should be plenty of other shiny crystals nearby on the bottom of the shrine that you can switch it wit-"

"Welcome young caretaker Katherine to our domain of the dragon sanctuary," a deep and furry voice ahead of them said suddenly. Quill jerked his head up in surprise. A rather large Ravenquervon stood before them, his arms slightly spread out as he welcomed Katherine in. "You have entered on Quetzacotaday, the day we weekly pray to our god Quetzalcoatl."

As he spoke, Peter noticed the small white and red building, reminding him of the Japanese dojos in movies he used to watch as a kid, planted right behind the large Ravenqervon ahead of them.

It was rather nice looking actually, being all white except for the two open red screen doors and the long ago painted underpinning. A few other Ravenqervons stood before it, as if guarding it, but between them Quill could see some of the healthy green vines that grew all over it and the different color pictures of Ravenquervon's spirits hanging. All that could be seen inside was not that impressive in the fact that it seemed to need to be guarded. All there were was two old Ravenquervons, their wings a fading black and a forming gray, playing a game of Pai Sho in the center, blocking some of the path behind the building, going up the hill till hidden from the top of the building and the line of never ending trees on that side of the area.

A second of awkward silence happened before Katherine clasped her hands together nervously. "Quetzacotady eh? Grand day for prayer no?"

The large Ravenqervon nodded, his smile easy to see despite all of his feathers surrounding his beak.

Quill suddenly noticed that the being next to him was shaking extremely hard. Turning his head slightly, he saw that it was Drax, looking like any second he was about to burst.

Okay, now Peter was slightly stunned. Why in the galaxy was he-? Wait, during the short time they had know each other now, Quill had noticed that for a person with such a hideous past that Drax was a surprisingly compassionate. Drax had acted odd the whole day after he had revealed to the team that I was yet a child. Did he decide to semi-adopt me?

"Yes, and I have heard from the catchers that tonight will be a grand night of prayer, where we shall eat only then after sacrificing the living meal's still beating heart to Quetzalcoat. I have heard from them that today they had a grand catch."

It snapped immediately inside Quill's head who he was talking about. "Rocket," he thought.

It was then when Drax suddenly broke.

"Arg!" he grunted as he lunged forward suddenly, Gamora and Quill quickly grabbing hold of him and struggling to hold him back as best they could.

"A grand day to roast the young kilt above a fire to sacrifice to your gods? A grand day to kill a young kilt? A grand day to murder my young kilt!"

Quill's eyes widened in shock and chuckled nervously as he pulled Drax back with Gamora as he almost manged to break free, his eyes red in fury. Drax had adopted me! Taking a quick glance back at the angry and provoked Drax, Quill made a quick mental note ,as he looked back at the Ravenqervon, to never get between Drax and me. As the Ravenquervon watched interested, Katherine rose her hands and moved them hurriedly across her neck till the Ravenqervon noticed it in the corner of his eye. As he turned to face her, her arms went straight down, her face easily expressing panic. The Ravenqervon rose a feather that was right above his right eye. Katherine chuckled nervously before jabbing him in the stomach slightly as if she was trying to do it playfully.

"Ignore him," she rose her hand up to her face, blocking her mouth from the Guardian's view as if she was trying to keep a secret. Badly.

"He's a non-believer."

The Ravenqervon's eyes widened. "Are you saying you'r-"

"I'm saying that I'm Quetzalcoatl curious. I think I just don't know that much about it, so who am I to judge, and hey, maybe one day I'll be a grand worshiper, just as you are." She gestured towards all the Ravenqervons around them, grinning nervously, her hand shaking slightly. She pointed behind the Ravenqervon and into the small Japanese dojo like place at the two older Ravenqervons. "Could I please have the honer of a trial worshiping with the head priests Pai and Sho?"

The Ravenqervon's eyes widened even more. "I-I, sure, y-you ca-ac-can, I-I mean," the Ravenqervon paused and took a deep breath. "Follow me."

The Ravenqervon flinched slightly as Drax lunged at him once more suddenly, Quill and Gamora barely being able to hold him off that time. Katherine gestured to the Japanese dojo like place with her head. "Come on Beometh."

Quill leaned closer to Katherine. "But Quetzacotady day?"

Katherine glanced back slightly. "It's their Wednesday, they do it every week. Be careful for Thradquartor day, or Thursday, it's even worse."

Beometh started to turn and lead the way in. Katherine nodded before motioning towards the Guardians and stating nervously," Please don't kill them." She turned and started towards the dojo to pause, and glance back at them to give a wink before heading on in. The doors were closed behind them.

Quill glanced around, looking at the remaining Ravenqervons. Most of them were now looking at them( causing more cold shivers of fear go down his spine) before shrugging and going back to their gruesome work. Others high-fived, celebrating and cheering that finally at last, they had the caretaker on their side. Quill slowly let down his guard on Drax, who now seemed to be calming down. However, he was ready to jump and put it back on at any second. "They're not attacking," he whispered, slightly shocked. He had expected them to attack slightly, for they weren't the caretaker and hadn't agreed to a trial worship.

"Katherine did ask for us not to be attacked," Gamora stated, as she slowly lowered her guard over Drax as well."They're most likely to comply to any of her requests she has until she finally says yes to them."

Quill nodded before motioning for them to go towards the shrine. Walking slowly towards it, they soon got to it without causing too much suspicion or any at all in fact it seemed.

And there it was. The last needed Pandorian Crystal . It was small and purple , looking so much the exact opposite of something of the much importance that what they had been through was worth it.

Due to being placed right alongside the long line of entangled trees, the back side had not be taken well care of, taller grass than the already over normal sized grass growing behind it, while branches scratched the back every time the wind decided to blow. The front, however, was the complete clean and well taken care of as the large group of Ravenqervons who were sacrificing the dead Ravenqerovn upon the pole device to Quetzalcoatl, Quill soon realized, came over and bowed in front of it, the dead Ravenqervon placed before the shrine.

Peter glanced back at the Japanese dojo looking building. Katherine had said she would buy them some time to steal it before bringing the Ravenqervons over and making them notice that it was gone. Turning back to look at the shrine, Quill sighed, making up his mind.

Peter turned to face Drax. "Drax, you be the lookout. Stand on the side of the shrine and alert us if any bird notices or if Katherine comes running back." Drax nodded.

Quill turned to Groot. "Groot, you stand on the other side and see if you can grow a small vine across the crystal without them noticing it and pulling it out."

Groot nodded. "I am Groot."

Quill looked down, slightly shocked that Katherine was right about the large amount of shiny crystals lying about the shrine. "Why in the galaxy did they choose that one over all the others?" he thought as he bent down and swiped one up as the Ravenqervons weren't looking. He passed it to Groot. "Swipe it with this." Groot nodded again.

Groot got into his position, with the rest of the Guardians standing besides Drax. Quill leaned back slightly to see Groot.

"Ready Groot?" he whispered.

Not saying anything , Groot got down to his work. Raising his arm all the way up as high as he could without it being seen, he started to grow his index finger. Thinner and thinner it got as it got longer, swirling around multiple times until if finally reached the crystal. Quill held his breath.

The small vine wrung itself around the crystal's middle. Drax leaned back and told him to pull up a little. Groot complied. It was inches higher that it's small pedestal now. All of a sudden, the head Ravenqervon's eyes snapped open, causing Drax to hurriedly lean forward slightly.

In a matter of a second, the wing was swung out, cutting off the vine. The crystal fell perfectly back into it's small pedestal as Groot quickly took back his remaining vine.

Quill let out his breath. "Well, that didn't work," he thought.

Looking over at Gamora worriedly, his eyes lowed down to where he kept his elemental blaster. "Wait, Drax cover me!"

Quickly as no bird was watching, Quill jumped down and rolled behind the shrine to land in something soft and squishy. Getting up slightly, Quill opened his mouth, trying everything in his power not to let a sound come out other than the small gasp he had let out. "Oh Rocket so owes me," he thought.

Lying down there underneath Quill's legs now, was the fat legs of a dead and rotting Raverqervon. Looking up a little, Quill could see the whole body lying there , hiding behind the shrine,slashed open with fat bug and critters buzzing about and within. Quill shifted his legs slightly to hear a sickening squishing noise. And wait, were there another one, lying underneath it? Ew!

Gulping to stop the upcoming urge to vomit, Quill shook his head as he moved his legs further up the body to reach the back of where the crystal and it's pedestal, each time causing the sickening squishing noise to happen. "If we don't get caught and manage to save Rocket, I'm so going to kill him!" Quill thought, glancing down at the corpse one last time before pulling out his elemental blaster.

Creating a small circle of ice, he slowly started to spray out water out of his blaster, making the rock shrine break slightly. Quill dropped the blaster and started to break the top ice and to try to pull out the small circle. The ice broke easily, leaving behind a small line of a circle where it once was.

Quill pulled on the top of the circle, gritting his teeth as little rocks flew out. It moved a little but soon was stuck, the tip of the circle slightly leaning backwards.

Gamora , who unknown to Peter had been watching the whole time, suddenly hissed ," Quill, what are you doing?"

Quill jumped, causing the sicking sound to happen louder than he would have liked. "I'm trying to pull the rock out so we could just switch out the crystals." Quill gestured to the stuck rock. "But it's stuck." His eyes light up as idea popped up in his head.

Looking down, Quill glanced around till finally finding what he was looking for. A decent sized rock. Tossing it slightly to test it's weight, Quill started to lean back a bit, ignoring the slight pain he was now receiving in his arm, as a thorn was pushed into it. "Drax! Drax!"

Drax's leaning back figure could soon be seen. Quill slightly lifted the rock up. "I'm going to hit that part of the shrine with this till the bottom is pushed out. Tell me when they aren't looking." Drax nodded before going out of view.

Peter pushed out his arm, wincing as the thorn was pulled out. Turning it, he could now see the small droplets of blood sliding down his arm. "Hopefully these birds can smell fear, but not blood. Or like chickens," Quill thought with a shiver as recalled one of those days when he was still a child, living at his family's farm. One chicken he had rescued but had blood all over it. The next day when he placed it among the others it took only seconds for the others to turn aggressive at it, killing it before he had the chance to rescue it again.

Pushing himself slightly forward, Quill got ready to strike. "Now Drax?" he whispered.

There was a minute of silence. A now soon came as a quiet, barely heard whisper, but he heard it nevertheless. Quill swung.

A minute passed. "Drax, how about now?"

"No."

"Now?"

"Yes."

Quill swung again, this time causing the tip that was out to go back in. "Quill, pause!" Gamora's voice whispered suddenly. Quill turned still as stone.

A couple of seconds past, Gamora leaning back and whispering," Now."

Quill swung.

The next couple of swings came, pushing the bottom tip more and more out till it was poking out like the top was minutes ago.

Quill swung again, pausing to wipe the sweat off his face. His frown deepened as he notice that it hadn't moved. Another now came from Drax and Quill swung, watching as if didn't budge. Great. It was stuck, again.

Leaning forward a little more, Quill reached his hand out , grabbing for the crystal when he heard another now. "Is that..., no it's just a ball of fuzz... is that...no, dam I can't see...no that's not it...," he thought until suddenly being snapped out of it by Gamora.

"Quill!" she warned. Quill quickly pulled back his hand.

Drax leaned back. "Quill, Katherine is running back to us."

A couple of seconds past and the noise of someone running in their direction started to be heard.

Gasps for air could be heard for a few seconds before Katherine stepped into view. "What are you doing?"

"I'm trying to break the back so they won't notice as they would if we were to just grab it and run."

Katherine looked back and forth, looking panicky. "Well, you better hurry, I just convinced Pai and Sho that I wanted to pray in front of the crystal!"

"How long?"

Katherine glanced back at the upcoming Ravenqervons. "About two minutes."

Drax glanced at the other Ravenqervons, who were now gathering the dead Ravenqervon's corspe and placing it among the others before starting on their way. The rest didn't notice this, Gamora jumping down to help Quill with Katherine whispering to them, panicking, to hurry up.

Glancing back at the upcoming Ravenqervons, Drax quickly reached for the crystal, but stopped as he felt their eyes on them. Turning, he saw that he was wrong and they hadn't even cast them a sideways glance as one turned to face the other and made him laughed.

Quickly bending down, he grasped hold of another crystal and swapped it with the Pandorian Crystal.

Quill paused, noticing what was in his hand.

Drax threw it over to him. Quill tossed it up in his hands nervously as he put it in his jacket's pocket. He looked up and gave a thumbs up.

Katherine leaned against the side of the shrine and sighed in relief. She closed her eyes.

"Ready for the worshiping to the Quetzalcoatl crystal that you asked for young caretaker Katherine?" Pai asked.

Katherine jumped, glancing back behind the shrine to see that no one was there but the dead bodies. Out of the corner of her eye she saw that Groot, Quill, and Gamora were now just standing on the other side of the shrine, looking innocent. Quill smiled and waved. Cursing them for scaring her, she turned back to face the older Ravenqervons.

Sho raised a feather. "What did you say young caretaker?"

Katherine's eyes widened. "Um, yes. Yes!" She smiled as big as she could.

Pai nodded. "Then follow me."

He bowed down, closing his eyes. With everyone watching, Katherine slowly started get unstuck from her stiff position, to move over there and bow down as well. "Folw lowe croes keshement Quetzalcoatl. Tudge fosl slolga puge."

Katherine opened her eyes and glanced around slightly before closing her eyes once more. "Flow lowe cross keshament Quetzalcoatl. Toad floss sludge pudge," she said, splatting out most of the words as oddly as she could it seemed, trying to sound somewhat like the Ravenqervon's. Pai opened his eyes and looked over at her, stunned at how apparently wrong she had gotten those so seemingly easy words. Katherine opened her eyes and glance at him for him to just to shake his head in dismissal.

Katherine looked up at the new crystal, it giving off a shine in the now afternoon sun light.

"Do you, um, notice something different about your crystal? I don't know, but it just seems different to me."

Sho turned and stared at the crystal. His eyes grew wide. "Nothing to me except it seems extra shiny today," he said as though hypnotized, before lifting his wing and stroking it gently. Pai's eyes grew wide as well as he looked up and started to stare unblinkingly at the crystal. Katherine rolled her eyes and groaned. "But really, there's something wrong with it, right?"

Both of the Ravenqervons squawked and started to stroking the crystal. _"Shiny!"_

Katherine stood up and raised an eyebrow.

If they weren't in mortal danger right now, Quill would have let the laughter escape his lips as he struggled to hold it back. He bit his lip as he held back the laughter due to the ironies of this all. Also they said it like a little cartoon bird did in one of the TV shows he used to watch as a kid...

"But it's not the...," Katherine paused before groaning and throwing her hands up in the air. "Fine, whatever."

Pai looked away from the crystal, however not stopping the process of stroking it lovingly. "What, was there something that you wanted to ask us young caretaker? Sorry about that..." He glanced back at his wing before using the other to pull it away.

Katherine's face went blank. "Well I always did want to know what is so special about that crystal, why is it the great Quetzalcoatl's worship crystal?"

Sho forced his wing away as well and smiled. "That one is easy. He pooped it."

Katherine raised an eyebrow as Quill bit down on his lip even harder and had to fold his arms across his chest to stop his body from shaking in laughter. "What?"

"He pooped it. It is said that since the gods don't need to drink nor eat that they poop out different types of gems and crystals," Sho said straightly, not joking at all. "It is also said by the Ravenqervons before us that this is the one and only crystal he pooped out that managed to fall to earth." Sho gestured at it with his wing.

Katherine glanced over at the Guardians blankly, before an expression, that read that she had an idea, started to slowly form on her face. She turned back to face the Ravenqervons a bounce in her step. "That does sound like something the great Quetzalcoatl would do," she said straightly. Gamora jabbed Quill, trying to make him stop from almost bursting out of laughter.

"Now that I've done both the black water and crystal worship practice as a trial, I think I will try one more. Sacrificing."

Quill's face went blank, all of the laughter and joy out of it. "What?"

The Ravenqervons glanced at each other before turning back to face Katherine. A thin grin escaped their lips. Gethrine chirped.

"To sacrifice this nonbeliever to Quetzalcoatl alongside the Head Council." Katherine said, gesturing to Drax . The grin on the two Ravenqervons were nothing they tried to hid anymore.

"Well, o-of c-c- of o-f of course, we-ll we'll led you the way!"

"Don't worry that won't be necessary. I know the way to the Head Council. And then tomorrow I shall give you my answer." The two Ravenqervons nodded, before pulling out a pair of odd transparent handcuffs. Katherine started walking backwards to Quill and Drax.

"What the hell is this about?"Quill muttered. Katherine turned to face Quill's ear for a few seconds to whisper.

"They would've never noticed, and if we showed them, I don't think they'll believe us. But I know some birds that will."

"Who?"

Katherine pointed behind the Japanese dojo looking place to the the path , now easier to see as it got higher, circling around the mountain to the unseen very top.

"The Head Council of the Ravenqervons. They're head of all that stuff, all the sacrificing and worshiping, for sure they'll know we'll not bluffing. We'll for sure be able to trade it over for Rocket. " She looked over at the coming Ravenqervons with the cuffs in hand . "And those are glass by the way, I saw your eyes. Due to being breed from both a kind of raven and dragon that can't see glass, they use those to stop their criminals," she paused for a second, "or those they wish to sacrifice to their pooping god."

"So for sure we'll be able to get those birds to trade it for Rocket?"

Katherine nodded.

Quill looked at Drax and nodded. "Alright Drax, let them cuff you."

Drax nods.

As they made their way past the Japanese dojo to the beginning of the rather long path, Rathenqervons watched or glanced up at the very least. At the beginning of the path they finally turned and started to head back to their own businesses.

Katherine pulled something small and transparent out of her pocket as Gethrine chirped. She pointed up towards the top where a small bundle of trees could be seen, revealing that it was a small transparent key.

"How about I unlock it when we get to that small bundle of trees, okay?"

...

"Us gridlocks however, have no idea what it is about. We know no such thing as Terra."

The dying gridlock groaned in pain as he leaned back, pushing his body against the wall , breathing heavily. Flapping his large wings against the walls, he looked back down at me. "No gridlocks have been there, or nevertheless even in a quadrant where others have said Terra is existing in if asked, most of us here coming from permanent residents at our home planet to permanent resident here. The prophecy has been here itself since the beginning of time yes, but knowledge of Terra to gridlocks is not. Thanks to the gridlock clan, once licked or having licked, other species' brains are connected into the clan and their knowledge becomes part of ours. But sadly, none so far have had any knowledge of it, or have been there."

I bit my lip, recalling when Quill had told me about that planet, his home planet, it being only just a couple of months after the whole Ronan fiasco, the fool letting a single word slip out for him to pause slightly before stopping that whole conversation . He had left after that , mainly staying in his quarters quietly for the rest of the afternoon. It was odd, yet I didn't press more on that subject . Peter Quill might be annoying and loud but that was him normally, and when he was quiet then something was definitely wrong. And I had caused it. Why was it always I who was screwing stuff up? Couldn't I do at least one thing right?The one word he had slipped out however, was earth.

"That's Quill's home planet," I thought. "And I know that, how come it didn't...?"

I let go of my lip, having bitten it too hard and slightly cursed myself before going back to thinking about that darn planet. Should it be something I tell him about? I squinted, trying to see into the darkness at the dying gridlock's eyes.

"But the prophecy will happen and it is coming at us soon, I can tell, for I shall be dead very soon."

No. I closed my mouth , having once the urge to tell him. That was Quill's planet, his problem. He had left, disturbed that one time I had heard about it. If it was something about his home planet, it was something I wasn't about to spread. It was up to Quill to ever announce it, if it was something he even knew about. And hell, if it was such a big deal like this gridlock was making it, surly we would have heard about it or something...

Minutes of silence rang by.

"Does it bother you?"

I looked downwards, stunned. I couldn't believe I just asked that. That was something normally I'd never ask, usually never giving a dam about how others felt, not caring when I shot at them or even when I would walked by and hear them cry out.

To cause pain. It was normally the only reason one comes close to me. Why would there be any other reason for them to? Ever since I was born, no made, every living thing in the galaxy except for Groot had tried too, either out shock and disgust as I would walk by for the first time or others who seemed to make their life into hell so that every time that I saw them I was suck back in there, such as those on Halfworld. Why? Well because I was a freak, a stupid worthless freak..

I had oddly done nothing wrong , the second time I had gone to prison, if I was to count Halfworld as the first. It was because others hated me, wouldn't have anything to do with me. Okay, so it wasn't actually prison, but the dark alley ways and roads that I lived off of as soon as I escape, but hey, it was extremely close to being counted as the second prison if anyone was to know about my past. The looks...the hits...the torture... the attempts to eat me such as the supposed Norbert gridlock.. it was not as bad as Halfworld, oh hell no, but still...

"Vermin, road kill, rodent, the hits, the torture, worthless freak, their thing born just to take apart and put back together daily..., oh great, was I going to think of this all day and then have a nightmare about it tonight?" I asked myself solemnly as I breathed in . It wasn't due to these thoughts during the day that I normally had that caused those dreams. No, some days, rare days, I didn't think about those thoughts, most of them due to me being struck unconscious for hours ( so like I said rare days) but I would still have those nightmares at night. Nightmares of my past, my creation, being torn apart and put back together, being a seemingly plaything for those crazy scientists , those nights and days upon that damn white metal table, the torture , and the hatred . I shuddered.

"Not much," the dying gridlock said, snapping me out of my thoughts. I looked up at him. "It used to bother me when I was younger, but I have lived a long life now, and hey at least when I die, I will die right before the universe is plunged into an external darkness of pain and torture," the dying gridlock said, grinning slightly as he joked that last part.

A ray of light sunlight hit me, making me turn in surprise at the sudden increase of temperature, and wince as the sunlight slashed into my eyes. The ray moved upwards, showing the opposite of the cave to the very top, to disappear. I squinted towards the entrance.

It was rather hard to see any of the light this deep inside the cave, however a few strands still slightly reached us. The light was faint, looking as if it was late in the afternoon, with the sun soon to start setting. I glanced back at the dying gridlock to see it scratching his back against the wall of the cave, his stomach grumbling hungrily slightly. I nodded slightly.

Yep, it was time to go.

Slipping my paw into my jumpsuit pocket, I grasped hold of my pocket dimension vial slowly, ready to pull out a weapon at any given second. I slowly started to take a tentative step back.

"I take it you wish to leave?"

I stopped in mid-step. "Shit, I forgot him being able to see me," I thought.

I pulled out a gun, raising it high at him and growled,"And you'll be wise to let me." A second past.

"Alright."

I lowered my gun slightly. "What?"

"Alright." The dying gridlock raised his arm and started to wave his paw up and down, as if waving me away. "You can go."

I lowered my gun slightly more, slightly dazed but still ready to strike at any needed moment. "You're going to just let me go?"

"Yes. I am one of the much older gridlocks, as you know, and I am very much about formality and the gridlock clan. Due to you being in it, you may leave whenever ready. However," he lowered his neck to face me, eye to eye and growled, blowing back my fur. I almost broke into a shudder.

"You should know that if you weren't, I would have no problem, and would no doubtingly , eat you right now, you never seeing the light of anything ever again." I gulped.

"O-okay." I shook my head slightly, mad that I had let my voice cracked, even if it was a little, as I took another tentative step back. I watched the dying gridlock. Nothing.

Another step. Another nothing. Another step. Another nothing. Another step. The dying gridlock blinked, but other than that, did nothing. I slowly placed the gun upon my back before turning around and starting to walk away.

"Good luck."

I paused, to glance back at the now unbreakable brick of complete darkness that now hid everything behind me. "What?"

Nothing. A few minutes past, a small dripping sound being the only thing heard as water must've dropped down a stalactite. I turned back around and started out the cave once more.

If one was to look up from upon that rock the dying gridlock was upon now, at the top of the wall beside them, they would've seen an amazing, yet peculiar scene. Like a book being torn apart by it's spine, two big parts of it started to pull away from each other. It groaned as it broke apart and started to slide away from each other , revealing a slightly lighter colored back wall. A shot rang out.

The dying gridlock growled,looking up at it's attacker. A shot came from it once more. The dying gridlock growled again, swinging his neck slightly before retaliating by banging his head upon the cave wall. The cave shook.

Another shot rang out, followed by another and another. The dying gridlock howled horribly loud in painful anguish, for the last time ever, before laying down his head in defeat, surrendering to his now non-painful and quick death.

I glanced back at the cave, having now exited it, and smiled slightly ,understanding that was the last howl of a dying gridlock to ever be heard, before heading on forwards. To where, I didn't know.

Back at what apparently seemed to be some odd opened door , a voice, a teenage girl's voice could be heard. "Shyn, did you shot at it?"

A second past.

"Y-yeah," a quiet, soft teenage boy's voice said. "But didn't you say it was a robot?"

Another teenage boy's voice, this one much more scared sounding ,entered the conversation. "Zoinks! That does sure look a lot like a real monster! Are you like, sure it is a robot Velma?"

A different voice came out this time, this one in a much more raggedly way, as if he wasn't used to talking. "Rh-huh."

A second past, as if Velma was bending down slightly in the lightly colored wall at the dead gridlock.

"Jinkies! It does look like a frighting real monster! But if I am correct on my diagnosis, that monster however is really just a robotic machine created to terrify people out on the lake, like the Loch Ness monster would."

A few seconds past, the sound of a water droplet falling was heard on their side of door, as if it was somehow, in it's own way, trying to help Velma with her case.

"Why do you ask Shyn?" Velma asked, sounding concern for her friend.

"It just looked so realistic and in so much pain," the boy let out, it barely above a whisper. A small click was heard going downwards as if something was being lowered, along with the small sound of shifting pants , happening rather slowly, as if Shyn was slightly stunned.

...

"... the Head Council of Goshegn, Sotrik, Shvhie, Qalabamtertals, Sihf, Cruipodzoidas, Cuts da par M Tessgeisqis, Lush, Cloiszods, W's, meep poops, Lush Tresuras, Pard, Duts da par pruod Ravenqervons, aaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnddddddddd avoiidpeno goslush."

A moment passed as Katherine lowered her hand sheepishly, that she had just used to help introduce the four larger than usual larger Ravenqervons sitting before them on well made thrones of dirt, Quill raising his eyebrow, hands on his hips. "Or better known as, the Head Council of Religion, Fencing, Living, Quarters, Fish, Babies, Seasons of the four cuts, Sacrifices, Openings, X's, Dung, Hearts, War, Duts of the proud Ravenqervons," Katherine paused slightly, to smile brightly and breathe in deeply," aaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnddddddddd their gods." Katherine looked up at the one Ravenqervon who sat before the others, them forming a line of three behind her. "Head Council Lady Agatha Messida." She paused and nodded out of respect. The Ravenqervon followed.

"Yes, young caretaker?"

Katherine raised her left leg, placing it on the solid base of what looked like elegant carved (on the edges and sides) sand that held the thrones a good foot up high off the ground, letting the Ravenqervons stare down at them callously in their deep ,soulless, and never ending black eyes . "We understand that tonight is planned to be an indeed, special night, a special occasion, to sacrifice an especially good beating heart to your god, Quetzalcoatl."

The Head Council nodded simultaneously.

"And it seemingly requires very little, your Ravenqervons, a fire, your precious crystal, and a catch, which I am one to hear that one of your catchers have caught a horribly wonderful catch for tonight."

Drax flinched out in the corner of Quill's eye, making him get ready to leap forward to block at any given moment. He didn't break again though.

The Head Council Lady nodded, a slit of a smile upon her beak. Katherine started leaning closer to her. "However, I have to disagree with you on the fact that you have everything you need for tonight's ceremony, the Guardians and I have something you might need to continue the ritual..."

Katherine slowly started to reach into her pant's pocket, Lady Agatha and the other Ravenquervons leaning forward slightly, eyes slightly wider , curious.

"Hey losers!"

Everyone turned, to see my head bobble up and down as I headed on the path up the other side of the mountain, almost at the top. A chorus of two ,"Rocket!," one "I am Groot!, and one, "Young kilt! was yelled out as the Guardians raced up to me.

Katherine smiled slightly, glad that the Guardians had gotten their one missing family member back.

"Yes?"

Katherine turned to face Lady Agatha, face slightly whitening. She quickly stashed the almost out crystal back into her pant's pockets. "Nothing."

...

Bubda turned the wrench , tightening the bolt one last time before dropping the wrench to step back to admire his work, that so happened to be the now completely fixed and one layer of wax Milano. "Wow, my ship looks great!" Quill cried, as we all slowed to a stop behind him.

Bubda dropped the towel he held in his other hand(having using it to wax the Milano), it landing with a loud sickening splat in the nasty looking cleaning liquids mixed together inside the bucket inches next to his lower half of his body. I flinched in disgust out of instinct. _Gross.._

Bubda turned to face us and sighed. "Yep, here it it is. The newly broken ship fixed, though I'm still not happy about it."

Katherine turned to face us, Gethrine turning as well, his tail wagging happily. "Here you guys go," she said, before handing over the crystal to Quill. He smiled as he lifted up his boom box and placed in the last Pandorian Crystal . The map appeared, a new dot appearing , showing that on some unknown planet was another chance to find Cosmic Seed.

I gritted my teeth, wanting to groan as I took noticed that it was far away from here. An at least two week journey.

Peter closed the CryptoCube and placed it back into one of his jacket's pockets. Bubda started to slowly slide away to the side of the Milano.

"I guess this is goodbye then," Katherine said, glancing down at the ground slightly.

"Actually, it doesn't have to be," Quill said.

Katherine's head flew upwards. "What?"

Peter gestured to the other Guardians who followed in pursuit, nodding one by one. I raised an eyebrow. "We've been thinking about it, with you helping us, going through all that you did only to, being lonely and all, and we decided to offer you a spot on the Guardians."

Katherine's eyes widened. "Really?"

Quill and Gamora nodded.

Katherine smiled softly. "I'm so sorry, but I can't. Don't get me wrong, I really would love to come along and fight in epic adventures of who knows what, but as I was forced to dip my head into this Pensieve full to the rim of solid black water in that building , alongside me Pai and Sho, I realized something. Inside I could see the world forming. I could see the Ravenquervons , the apchoninon, the gridlocks, the whole dragon sanctuary! They were all there, alone, there no longer being peace among them. The gridlocks and Ravenqervons were at the top, always fighting the other for supremely while the others, such as the apchoninons ran and cowered in fear. Red and roars were everywhere, the sky was made of clouds of red. I was the only thing there keeping the peace! Without me the dragon sanctuary would divide! Yes they may not let the outsiders even when I beg live or even have respect for me now, but they need me! I can learn, I can try to control them! Even though lonely everyday, I have to stay. I have to help this sanctuary. I can learn! I can make them learn to respect me with authority! I have to at least try. I have to stay."

Quill nodded, his eyes glancing down for a second, slightly saddened. " Okay. I guess this is goodbye then." He lowered his arm from his neck.

Katherine smiled. "Yeah." I folded my arms in thought. What had happened here?

The other Guardians started to head to the Milano, I unfolding my arms and following behind.

Katherine started to wave goodbye. "Goodbye! Do come visit us whenever!"

Quill shot up his arm. "Will do!"

We headed in and started to leave.

Katherine bent down and gathered Gethrine, smiling as they started to wave away, a human with her hand and an apchoninon with his tongue and tail as our ship started to sail away. Bubda sighed and continued on his way, leaving.

Only if they were to know, but unknown to them, a few yards behind them a small section of bricks started to rise up and glow ,the name Guardians of the Galaxy appearing.


	9. The Backstabber

Lunch had been, well...odd.I blinked quickly, shaking my head before turning back to face my project, trying to brush off the uneasy feeling that was filling up within me, before thrusting the two wires that I now held in my paws together. But even as I continued to just watch the electricity buzz through the wires, trying as if to pass off the now passed event as if it never happened, I sighed, knowing that could now never happen. Quill's bed sheets and blankets will forever smell like Drax's monasoum. Hopefully , perhaps, Quill will be an idiot and will never link the two together...

It had been two whole weeks now since the whole dragon sanctuary crash and scenes , and now we were floating through empty space at the beginning of the strike of the afternoon, lunch time apparently to Drax. He had came into the main room underneath the cockpit not to long ago, where I so happened to be, alone, hooking up my machine in the middle of the room on the ground before he entered, him placing down a big bowel filled with some waxy, brownish tinted purple, thick, bumpy, and vomit looking thing with what appeared to be some sort of mixerent cheese upon it onto the table near me, nodding his head once slightly as if to acknowledge me , the words " young kilt" coming out . He then had turned and started off ,the claim that it was one of his wife's finest culinary works and calling it monasoum, coming out as he walked away. A few tense seconds of silence soon rang by, my ears raised and eyes widened as nothing seemed to move in it's now seemingly sudden frozen frame. I sniffed the air, immediately regretting it, due to the smell. Damn, it had even smelled disgusting.

I, having dropped everything by now, had ran over to the table, climbing up onto the chair to lean over it, eyebrow raised. A minute past, as I watched a huge bubble of air fill up inside of it, flinching as it popped, splattering itself all over it's own surface with a sickening sound,...okay, now both of my eyebrows were now not coming down due to concern. What the _hell_ was going on?

From the sudden flash of a sudden oncoming second, my mind threw it's self back to that memory, that morning, when in the dragon sanctuary, Drax had served me his soup before himself. I remember blinking blankly at it before sniffing at it and deciding it was safe, devouring it...

He had given it to me, served me his own food before feeding his own self...

I shook my head, sighing as I forced that thought forcefully out with another, twitching slightly as it fought back for a few seconds. "What the hell,... _again_ , is going on?" No one had ever feed me like that before, apart from Groot in just the beginning months of time that began our friendship, I being too ill to move due to having shortly escaping the hell house of Halfworld and unknowingly ignoring my implants for too long. It had been at least two whole months of being hand fed by the plant before he had finally reached his breaking point and forced me into a hospital, much to my distaste.

Now yes, I had to admit, now since they had learned some about my past and that _apparently_ I was just a child, my whole team just seemed to be different around me. They might not really be, for the difference was now very hard to spot, apart from Drax, who had completely now changed demeanor. Sometimes it felt that perhaps it was only that way because I knew they knew, especially for the last two weeks, the first big break from all that we had been going through, with the ones who had not changed that things felt different. Drax,... I didn't know what to do with him.

I was just starting to feel as if I had finally done it, found a family, ..well out least with the four normal ones of the group. It felt...nice.

Slowly, I started to reach out hesitantly towards the big wooden spoon inside , pulling up a spoonful. The spoon started to creak. My face started to wrinkle up in determination as I started to pull it harder and harder upwards, long vomit looking strings holding it back from within the rest of the monasoum, for them to slowly start to thin out to finally snap and break. I dropped the spoon in disgust. I leaned back , my face turning blank. It looked worse than that so called chocolate those bastards from Halfworld forced me to eat, was the only thought that went through my mind before I was suddenly whirled back there:

_The circular cage,... chocolate laying on one side of it with the regular pellets I ate on the other side..., I in the middle being watched by hundreds of smudges of white lab coats. Every time I reached for the pellets...blinding burning pain executed it's way through me...I didn't make out what it was till after the experiment,I... being dragged away..., that there was a desk back there , with a scientist pressing the buttons...The pain to the pellets, ...none to the chocolate..."No, please," the beg was pathetically whimpered out...for more burning pain starting from the back..._

_They forced me to it...watching... and laughing as the pain swirled up ...pain...as it all swirled upwards and outwards to only be down all over again._

No, I shook my head hard, I was not going into that right now. My head slowed as I slowly started to force myself to look down at the disgusting food source again. "Not when I already have a problem to deal with."

Glancing over at the door frame, I slowly placed my arms around the bowl, my foot already starting to dangle as I started to slid off the chair. There was no way in hell I was going to eat this.

I was halfway off the seat when a voice filled the air. "Oh no you don't!"

As my ears quickly shot up, something , no someone, suddenly grabbed hold of one, pulling it till I slid back into the chair.

"Ow, ow, ow, Gamora!" my eyes going wide as I saw her there in the corner of my eye. A second past as we looked at each other, before she let go of my ear.

"What the hell was that for?"

He made that for you was thing she said, her voice slightly higher than a whisper.

I slowly started to lower my paw, the one I had been using since she had let go to rub against the slight numbing pain in my ear, downwards.

"Wha-?"

The thing was said again, he made that for you.

Her voice was soft, laced with deep concern and nervousness as well as it seemed, as if she wasn't exactly sure how to say this. I didn't blame her. Sentimental was neither one of us sort of thing, it being ripped out of us both carelessly, despite me not knowing why she had it here. I looked down at the bowl again. He had made it for me. But that was just it. He had _just_ made it. What was the big deal about it? Yes, as the memory shoved it's self forward to be recalled, Drax had given me his soup at the dragon sanctuary. He wasn't going to stop here was he? _What_ the hell was going on here?

I wrapped my arms around the bowl, looking like any minute I was going to attempt the escape route again.

I glared up at Gamora, determined to not let my lingering and questioning mind break me in the tiny feud I was having with her. I blinked, noticing something there that I hadn't before. She looked nervous, afraid slightly even, as if she was afraid of what was coming as her eyes flickered once to the hallway to me.

My eyes narrowed as I wrapped my arms tighter around the bowl.

"And?"

"He made that for you because he cares. Now you are not going to just throw that away, there are things in this galaxy we don't want to do , but he 's part of our group now whether we like or not, part of our group, our team...our family," she paused for a second there, her voice going quiet at the last part. She started back up in seconds as if nothing had happened.

"He made it for you because he cares, no other reason Rocket. He trusts you and worked hard on it as you can see, he sees you in that way."

Gamora glanced down at the bowl, my gaze following hers, seeing all the burnt edges and hard work that was put into it. "Besides, don't you think he'll just ask about it and then make another? " It did seem like something that would happen, due to all the hard work he had put into it. But I was not going to lose this.

My eyes rose, gaze looking back at her, eyebrows still straight with determination but letting one loosen a little. Gamora narrowed her eyes, her face changing into the hard assassin glare she had now slowly stopped holding as often nowadays as a Guardian.

Her finger rose and was pointed at the bowl.

"Now eat it."

A moment of lingering soft tension slowly passed before she left, heading to the ladder and climbing up into the cockpit, as I did nothing but sit there, stunned. Pangs of shock and uncertainty rang through me like the rings of sound coming out of a bell over what had just happened. She had just...She had just said... I was honestly lost for words. _Cares about you,_...o _ur group, ...our family, our team..., our family..._

Silence rang throughout the room as I tried to digest what she had just said . _"Family, group,team,...family, she had said that like if he really cared...like she really cared."  
_

I shook my head , nose sniffling once in shock. No one but Groot had ever...

It felt, no seemed , I had finally done it. I had finally found a family, the one that would still care about me when I broke, not that I was gonna, knowing that I was in safe arms to fall apart into when I did. Now don't get me wrong, I did sorta felt the same thing about Groot, but still, somewhere back in my mind was the nagging, the knowing that he could always leave, that if conditions with him such as not being a tree were different...

My mind snapped back to the words. _Part of our group, our team...our family..._

To have them like that, to have them seemingly caring like that, it felt...nice.

"But," I had suddenly thought ," what was I to do about this?" My gaze had fallen back slowly back to the monasoum without me even noticing. Eyes having gone back into reality, I focused on it. I couldn't clearly throw it away now, with Gamora now on it. She might see it. Inwardly I groaned as I looked up at my machine. Why couldn't things be like how they used to be, oh how I wished it was. When everything made simple sense and I could easily work on my projects alone and not have to deal with something like this.

Quill had known since from the time with the Ravenqervons that Drax had adopted me. It was a good memory of his, leaving a happily glowing feeling in his gut, knowing that I had unknowingly acquired an added family member in the sense of a father, someone who watch over me and take care of me,even though them also unconsciously and unanimously had all done the same the moment they had all found out about it. But with Drax, it was different, he could tell when watching us close by together, how Drax acted around me now, ...how he had even tucked me in one more time since them all finding out, unknowingly caught and watched by Peter.

Quill smiled as he got close to the turn at the end of the hallway, that on his very mind when he noticed me. All alone in the main room underneath the cockpit, sitting over with the lone table to the side of the room, an apparent invention of mine largely standing upwards nearby, with me looking completely stunned. Peter's eyes lowered down slowly following mine to the monasoum, which it's top was starting to bubble up , I involuntary flinching away slightly at the small amounts of fly sparks of it. No. No..., no? No! No flarking way!

Quill's face began to light up even more than it had been, a soft chuckle turning into a loud, uncontrollable laughter. When I noticed him and turned, he had one arm over his stomach, leaning over with only his other arm's hand clutching the doorway frame as a way of support. He had! He had made me lunch!

Quill couldn't breath. Laughter slowly dying to small hiccups of small fits of it , Quill got back up, looking up at me, who, since now the shock of the situation had died off, had growled. Quill had lasted one second before bursting out into laughter once more.

"Oh...oh man," he said, as it slowly started to die down as before. "He, he made...you lunch." Quill had now started looking down at the "supposed" lunch. A huge smile was still plastered onto his face.

"Oh wow Rocket, perhaps you should hid it behind a plant,... I remember reading about something like that in a book when I was younger." Quill was still trying to hold in his laughter. A moment passed before he had shook his head, smile still stupidly plastered goofily onto his face before he left, heading up into the cockpit as well.

My eyes slowly widening from their glare to slowly gaze back down at the monasoum. A plant. A plant, huh? I glanced quickly around the room. Oh gosh, how much I now wished we had a planet...

Groot, no, not stationary and was more than likely to take on Gamora's side of this. So, where the hell was this supposed to go?

Suddenly my eyes shot wide, mind hitting the exact spot for it to go. A smile slowly started to spread onto my lips. Oh yes, the perfect spot...

So the monasoum was to soon go into Quill's blankets and sheets, I pouring it on as best I could with the spoon gliding over them. Now dried, the monasoum had soaked in, no longer able to be seen, leaving only the smell. I hope, oh how I now hoped Quill would be the idiot and never put the two together...

With my eyes slowly coming to focus as something in the far corner of my eyesight moved slightly upwards, my mind snapped back into reality. Turning slightly, I could see better, seeing now that it was Drax, who had stopped besides me, staring upwards at the screen. He gave me no attention like he had done so earlier. It was to my relief, but was unexpected. "Odd," my mind huffed.

Staring at him, I noticed that he was also now carrying his two favorite knives on him, something else unlike earlier. A minute past. I shook my head, diminishing my thoughts at it, and looked up at the big screen I had created, it starting to frizzle to life. _"I trust you're all familiar with Ronan the Accuser: fanatic, ruthless, power-mad, and fortunately, now no longer among the living..."_

However, Drax's behavoir wasn't the only thing to have changed in the two weeks now. To a mere onlooker still, it was nearly impossible to notice, but two more hairs of my tail had turned white, this time one strand being on the top layer for the first time ever.

On screen, Nova Prime turned her attention to the picture of Ronan they had on their screen at the Nova Headquarters, from it once being on the Nova Corps members sitting in an auditorium like room. About a good twenty of them were there, listening to her with deep interest.

Motioning to it, Nova Prime started to speak again. "However, his elimination means that Thanos, the greatest threat to our galaxy, is now without a general." During which, their picture of Ronan closed in on itself to reopen with a picture of Thanos instead. " Ronan's absence from Thanos' inner circle has created a power vacuum."

" Where is this power vacuum?" Drax said suddenly, starting to wave about on of his knifes about in the air. Noticing this, I dunked and put my hands above my head subconsciously. I was glad I did when one strike almost left me without any hands. "I will find it and use it to cleanse the galaxy of all those scum!"

I turned to face him angrily. "Hey, hey, hey, hey, Drax stop swinging that knife around, ya d'ast fool!"

Drax paused. "I will not, young kilt, for Ronan killed part of my family and I will use this power vacuum to destroy Thanos!" He swung his knife again, this time it slipping loose and thrusting itself into one of the bottom steps of the ladder leading up to the cockpit. "Oops."

Groot, who I had not noticed making his way behind us to the ladder, exclaimed, "I am Groot!" in alarm. It had nearly hit him, my heart slowing slightly it seemed for a beat it seemed as I sadly took in what would had happened if he had been caught. With Drax throwing that way, it would have cut Groot's legs clear off...

I growled, turning quickly around to glare at Drax. "Arrrggg...Don't call me that!" There was a moment of silence as I hesitantly took in what he had just now said. "And what do you mean _part_ of your family?"

Drax looked up at me for a second before it looked like he was about to say something, however Gamora interrupted before it could even begin, starting to make her way down the ladder. She seemed to be back to her normal self, all of the odd emotions that she once held on her face gone, but then again I wasn't the best at reading people. " Put the knives down."

She leaned slightly onto the table, staring annoyed at Drax.

Drax lowered his arms and sagged a little. I may have mistaken this for something I wanted to see, but did Drax groan slightly? Like a little baby? I crossed my arms, glancing slightly at Gamora then back to Drax, ready to start. My soon to be smirk and laugh was cut off short however as Quill beat me to it. "And quit sulking like a baby," he said, a small smirk evident on his face as he got off the ladder, nearly missing to step over Drax's knife and almost falling over it unlike Gamora, to then look up from his crypotcube's map. He looked at Drax with untamed jeer.

He was down here. Uh oh...

Slowly, I lifted my foot ,pushing slowly the small panel filled with crisscrossing colored wires and parts lying close to my feet, pushing it slowly till it was safely hidden underneath my machine . Due to having dropped and loosing my plasma blaster at the dragon sanctuary, I had been steadily building myself a new one,... using Peter's ship's parts with him unknowingly. After a second of checking that revealed that Peter had still not noticed happened , I then huffed before turning back to my machine, tired already of their little banter and to avoid most likely nonexistent suspicion.

Drax had rose up a little at that statement . "I am sulking like a full-grown man," he explained.

"Who sleeps with a dolly." Apparently Quill wasn't going to lighten up on his teasing.

"I told you that in confidence, Quill." Drax tightened up a little. "And Mr. Rhinopus belonged to my daughter!"

"You confided in Quill?" Gamora asked as Quill went back at looking at his map. " He couldn't keep a secret if his life depended on it."

I thought back slightly to when Quill had told everyone my greatest secret about my past. Yep. He couldn't.

But now they wouldn't shut up! I growled softly. I couldn't hear anything on the screen due to those idiots!

Gamora started to head back up the ladder. " Or hold a map still while I'm trying to navigate."

"Yeesh! Take a recording, Gamora, it lasts longer."

"Good idea."

I could hear the sound of Gamora's recorder on her wristband starting up.

"Hey! Wa-wait, I was being sarcastic!"

"I wasn't."

Arragg... That was enough.

I turned back around. "Will you losers pipe down so I can spy on Nova Corps in peace?" I exclaimed.

Turning back around, I looked back at the screen, quietness now washing over as something took to the attention of everyone in the room.

"We believe Thanos will be naming his new general shortly, based on communications we've intercepted between Ronan's former lieutenants: Korath, Nebula, and Gamora."

There was a moment of heated silence. In which I found myself suddenly numbed. _"Korath, Nebula, ...and Gamora."_ It ran through my head repeatedly, over and over again, at least a thousand times. _"And Gamora."_ I soon found myself softly panting, gasping for breath. She..no...she..all she had just said...

What about all she had just said? Was it be true? Was it all some sort of lie, was I that vile, that monstrous that I could not ever really have someone? A lie , a worthless me could have believed in? I-I had known people who had done so before but I had believed...no, it can't be. Gamora..., she was different. Right? She had just tried to forced me to eat that trash Drax had called food. She hadn't pushed me away when...She was in fact the one who did the least when my secret had gotten out. Honestly, even with all I had done for them, I sacrificed my life for them, could it all be a lie? I trusted her, them, all of them, and this is how it's going to be? _Part of our group, our team...our family..._

Drax had turned to look at Gamora, his words sounding wavering and garbled to me as they past through me. I felt like I was underwater. "What is the meaning of this?"

"I am no traitor."

I snapped back into reality, jumping back into my defensive mode, looking up at her. Slightly her body and eyes showed sadness and regret while most of it showed slight anger and her normal self, though tightened up a bit.

Jumping onto the table, I looked at her squarely. "Says the lady who betrayed Thanos." I narrowed my eyes slightly, head tilting a tad. "Sooooooo, how come Nova Corps thinks you're keeping in touch with Korath and Nebula?" I asked, keeping my voice dry and cold. I dare not let it show. No, she couldn't...

"What, kids planning a surprise party for Daddy Thanos?"

Quill lifted his hand slightly. "Easy. It's not like Nova Corps completely trust us." He faked a cough, covering his mouth as he blurted out "Titus."

I shrugged, faking the nonchalant. I couldn't, I wouldn't let it show, not now after everything I've been through. My rough defensive mode was completely up now, covering up the trying emotional lumps swallowing being that I really was. "Why'd ya think I hacked into their comm feed in the first place?"

"I can't speak for Nova Corps, but I won't stay one more moment with a team that doesn't trust me. " _She didn't say family..._

That hit me like a blow.

Gamora turned and started up the ladder. After seconds of watching her go up, Peter turned to face us and gave us a glare before looking back up at the ladder. I pretended to shrug it off. No more kindness till I know.

"We get it Gamora. You were raised by Thanos, you used to work for Ronan. You turned your back on both of them. Water under the bridge. "

Away went Drax's other knife. Peter yelped as he nearly dodged it, it flying into the wall besides the ladder to stay. "Where is this bridge? Will we find Thanos there?"

Quill turned to face us, boom box in hand. "Oy, no," he sighed. "It means we trust her. And will you stop doing that!"

Quill's cryptocube's map appeared, showing that we had finally reached our destination. He grinned before climbing up the ladder. "See that reading? My boom box doesn't lie."

Peter gestured to the red dust ball of a planet that they had reached to Gamora. "The Cosmic Seed is right here on planet Sarawat. "

Suddenly the red dot disappeared, to reappear in another location. Peter frowned. "Or it was here. Now it's , um, there. In that place." I silently groaned upon hearing this below them. Great, more time stuck with them in a small , closed up , d'ast ship.

"I doubt the Cosmic Seed was ever on Sarawat. It's supposed to accelerate life, but I don't see much evidence of that," Gamora stated. It was true. One could see through the windows that on this dust bowl of a planet, from our height, there was no life. Or any huge Cosmic Seed given life anyway.

The Milano suddenly jerked backwards, I stumbling and almost falling over. I growled. What the hell was that?

Turning around, I soon got my answer. A gigantic light green creature with at least seven seen limbs and four bulging eyes, two displaced oddly on the back of his head, had grabbed us. Two of it's limbs held on tight to us, the rest wiggling like if he was swimming in water. My eyes widened. It was disgusting. "Except for that," Gamora dully stated.

It slowly started to pull us closer, it's toothless mouth starting to open as well.

Groot quickly climbed up the ladder, I soon snapping out of it and following. Sitting down, I heard Quill speak. "Okay, here's an idea: Let's get out of here before that thing eats us!"

Behind us I could hear the once going retro-jets stop. "Retro-jets are failing!" Gamora yelled.

I pressed down on one of my shooting buttons. The bullet ejected and flew quickly to the monster, only to be absorbed by it. "Guns ain't doing it either!" I exclaimed.

"If the Cosmic Seed was here, that thing must have absorbed it's energy," Quill explained.

"We need to dislodge it from the ship, before that thing absorbs us," Gamora commented.

"I am Groot," Groot said from behind me.

 _Huh._ "Good idea," I said. " I been wantin' to try 'em out."

From his front seat, I heard Quill asked warily as he turned slightly to face me. "Try what out exactly?"

...

Driving my space pod out first, I spoke into the intercom loudly. "I put a lot of sweat into those space pods, so don't scratch the paint."

Towards the monster we went, Groot upon my pod(he didn't need air, strange though for a plant), and Drax and Quill in their separate pods behind me.

Quill started to shoot. "The only thing I plan on scratching is old space squid here!"

The shots went in, only to land and ripple slightly on one of the monster limb's surface before being absorbed.

The monster continued on to growl, still wiggling it's limbs and ever slowly pulling our ship closer to his opened mouth.

"I am Groot."

"No kidding, nothing's happening!" I stated.

Peter frowned, no longer having allow himself the cockiness that he usually had in situations that this one almost seemed like. At first this had seemed like an easy task, just see if the planet Sarawat had the Cosmic Seed , to then turn to a small easy seeming skirmish with this big ugly beast. But now it seems things were going to be harder than he thought . He had to be serious and save us, and then sadly having to deal with this Gamora betraying us rumor. It was sad to him, how fast we were able to seemingly turn on each other after a little statement. Gamora wouldn't betray them however; it was just so easy to see, if she was going to, she already would have done so already after the Ronan fiasco, before being dragged into another adventure quite like this one. Besides, she easily was able to be read as someone who hated Thanos, and the such thing they were looking for happened to be a huge problematic thing if Thanos or such got his hands on it.

Pulling a little almost unnoticeable lever like rod down slightly, Quill's mask started to see through the monster's top layer, seeing the odd little me sized creatures inside. It clicked easily inside his head.

"So maybe we can do more damage from the inside."

Inside my pod, I raised an eyebrow. Of all the odd things Quill had ever said that had to be one of the oddest.

"Do you wanna get eaten?" I said as Groot turned on the edge of the pod to see me through the glass easier. Guilt hit me like a blow. I wished I had time earlier to finished his pod along with these. " That's disgusting."

 _"Hey!"_ Quill's brain snapped. "This, from the guy who eats from the garbage unit?"

I narrowed my eyes, but nevertheless, followed him down to an upper part of one of the monster's limbs, Drax following close behind me.

We all shot, creating three holes through the monster's skin that led inside. "I was cleaning it!" Going through, I noticed another eye, hidden on the side of the monster, from the corner of my eye.

"With your tongue?

"Least I use my tongue for eating, and not blabbing stuff that ain't nobody's business!" How could he tell...Urrrggggg!

Inside the ship, Gamora smirked. "Told you Quill can't keep a secret."

"Creatures, twelve o'clock!" Quill shouted from inside his pod before we started shooting. And oh, were they creatures alright. Covered in a layer of the same light green liquid like thing that coated the entire inside of the monster and floated absentmindedly within, it was a little purple thing, with four arms and two legs. However, that wasn't the oddest thing about it's appearance. It's tail in between the two legs was smaller then them, but inside the cover layer, the purple mush was bigger and had rounded bumps that made it look like a brain. This was, all of this, was disgusting.

"Not true," Quill exclaimed, thinking of all the big secrets he had on them, such as Groot having the thing inside him to grow back his entire civilization back within him at the right time. However, there was a risk, for pulling it out could kill Groot, as the thing was as well, indeed, his heart. Quill knew that Groot had acknowledged and accepted his fate, but hide it till the right time for his friends, especially me. Learning of it, I would knowingly demand that he was to never to take it out, along with the rest of the team. Quill had known that Groot was right, I, especially, would go into a frenzy.

Instead of telling them that he ,indeed, know some big secrets about them, he decided to let out on of the little ones, to persuade the lie that he actually couldn't. "I never said a word about that fungus on Groot's butt."

My pod passing near, he could hear Groot sigh, embarrassed. "I am Groot."

Finding the thing that most likely was the thing's nucleus, Quill spoke loudly on his intercom to make sure. "Hey Gamora, this creature's like an amoeba, right?"

"If you mean a single-cell bio-organism, then yes," Gamora answered confused.

"So, that's probably the nucleus," Peter said, staring right at the cylinder liquid like nucleus. The top half wavered slightly. "We ice that, we ice the whole thing."

He allowed a smirk to break through his lips. And just like that, he had also explained his plan to his entire team.

Inside my pod I grinned as I drove it to block off the oncoming creatures from Quill, who was driving steadily to nucleus. "Fine. One distraction coming up."

I started to shoot. "You want some of this? Ha-ha!" Completely engaged with the upcoming creatures, I failed to noticed that they had started to break up into two groups, one coming in from above. Seeing this, Groot turned around and waved off the pod's cover with his hand, pulling me out as it opened. "I am Groot!"

We started to slowly drift away, I sadly watching my pod drop down to the bottom of the monster's stomach and be attacked by the creatures at all angles. "You owe me a space pod, Quill!" I shouted angrily. "Ahhh!" I soon suddenly yelped out of surprise as Drax's pod came by, Groot reaching out and grabbing hold, taking me for the ride.

Quill had gotten very close to the nucleus when he waved off his shield. He started to get up, elemental blaster in hand. _No, no, what is he doing?_

"Uh, make that two space pods," he said, jumping out and flying by right next to the nucleus, freezing it. _Quill, no!_ I glared down at my now other down space pod.

The nucleus started to creak and moan to suddenly explode, the blueish white liquid inside bursting out and covering everything in sight. I couldn't see.

Hearing one last growl from the monster, there came a load bursting sound and a few seconds later I could see again. All of us were clinging onto Drax's pod, even Quill, who I don't know when got on there. We contined on forward in space, all that was left of the monster now was quickly dissipating liquids and floating small chunks of the monster's flesh. Gross.

I shivered slightly before turning, feeling slightly cold. I could see Groot, who was drenched in the monster's goo. Turning at Quill, I saw the same. I must be covered as well, the coldness seeping slightly in through my space suit.

"Where's the Milano?" Quill said suddenly. I glanced around. It was gone. Quill looked around as well. "Okay Gamora, very funny. Ha-ha. Now come pick us up." A second past. "Gamora?"

"I am Groot?" Groot suggested.

"She ain't in trouble," I said, all of the feelings and shock coming from my screen earlier coming back into mind as I continued to look around. "She's ditching us."

...

**Planet Sarawat**

I shivered slightly one last time, rubbing my hand over my slightly damp and cold other arm. We were on planet Sarawat now, and on this dust bowl, the heat had almost completely gotten dried everyone up.

Firstly Quill had taken off his ravager jacket, freezing slightly as the air hit him. "Brrr," he had muttered before starting to wipe the crap off of it and onto his shirt and pants instead. "Here," he said afterwards, throwing it to us. "You guys use it to clean off and then we'll take turns wearing it till we heat up."

It had surprisingly took a long while for us to mostly heat up.

I no longer wore my space suit, it put away in my pocket dimension vial, but the coldness still seemed to seep through me. It didn't make matters better when Drax had noticed me shiver and hadn't wasted a second to throw Quill's huge jacket around me, he was having his turn at the time, and stated that it was going to stay there on me. Groot had immediately agreed, no longer needing it, and though Quill had easily looked as he was against the whole ordeal, one look at Drax and he gave in. Minutes later, I shoved it off however. I didn't need them treating me like a baby. Now if I can just make it so Drax couldn't see me shiver...

"We never should've trusted her," Drax said from behind me as we neared our damaged ship. Completely wrecked, it leaned over on one side and smoke blew freely from the engines in large amounts.

"Looks like we never should have trusted her piloting," Quill muttered, sounding although he was trying to make a joke in his sudden sadden state.

I shook my head slightly, no understanding why Quill was still sticking up for her. But as that last thought flew through my mind, another one hit. Her. Just her. The rest of them: Groot, Drax, and Peter, they were going through what I was going through. I wasn't alone in this, this time. That thought alone made me smile for just a second, before Drax could catch drift of it...

"Gamora, explain your actions, "Drax demanded as soon as we walked in the ship. Peter raised his hand to his neck and left it there, a nervous expression I've noticed that he got whenever confused or frightened, as he looked around slightly.

"Where is she?"

"I don't know, but her space pod's gone," I said, having already taken a look in the room they all had once been. _My poor, baby pod..._

Groot pointed to the cockpit. "I am Groot, I am Groot!" he suggested.

"Good idea," I said," I better check."

I started walking over to the ladder and soon was going up. I manged to here Peter ask in complete confusion, "Check what?"

"Most likely to see if your boom box is still here," Drax answered.

"Oh. Hey come on, we all know she wouldn't steal it!"

I shook my head again, in disbelief, coming at the top of the ladder. I turned and looked. "Quill's boom box is gone?" I exclaimed in fake disbelief. I gave a fake gasp. "I'm shocked," I said before lowering my head so the others could see it. "Shocked, I say. See my face? This is my shocked face."

"Oh come on, guys. This is Gamora," Peter said in complete aspiration.

"Your shocked face looks just like your normal face," Drax stated. A second passed as Quill and I quickly glanced over him in mild surprise. Rolling my eyes, I soon got back to what I was about to say before.

"Who maybe hit that big blob on purpose to get rid of us? What if Nova Corps is right, and she's been working for Thanos the whole time?" It shocked me how fast that was blurted out of my mouth.

"Or she was kidnapped, or forced to betray us against her will."

Quill pointed slightly upwards for a second, moving his arms apart slightly then to help prove his point.

I started to step down on the ladder, sitting down on one of the steps. "That is easily the stupidest thing I have ever heard," Drax spoke.

"I am Groot."

"You got that right, bud. You know you're in trouble when Drax is the smart one."

Quill gave us a stupefied look as a second passed and Drax squirmed uncomfortably slightly in his spot. Groot looked down at Drax from behind him with pity, while I wanted to ask Quill, "What?". I never did however.

"I guess they never read or seen a movie like Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom or had to deal with the forced betrayal sort of thing before," Quill thought. It stunned him that they didn't even think about that, or know about that kind of play.

"Fortunately, I put tracers on everything," I said suddenly, snapping him out of his thoughts. He looked up to see me pull out my tracker device.

"Everything?" Quill asked. He pulled out his music player and looked down on it. Upon it was a small raccoon cartoon like thing with red eyes. He couldn't believe he hadn't noticed it till now.

Drax walked over and pulled out one of his knives. He looked on it's handle. There was one there too.

Groot turned around, neck turning as he tried to get a good look at the so called fungus growing on his butt. "I am Groot?" It soon started to light up in the eyes and beeping slightly.

"Everything, including the pods. So's I can nab the little green backstabber!"

Quill looked back at me, alongside a wide-eyed Groot. "You do realize that this isn't normal, right?"

I glared at him, the second of us staring at each other turning into a full-fledged minute as Quill soon started to look back and forth at Groot, Drax, and me in the eyes briefly. Another second past before he suddenly nodded to himself, jerking himself forward and swiping the tracker right out of my hands at the same time.

He started to race out of the Milano, us all following him, close on his heels. "I'm sure this is all one big misunderstanding," he cried out as he race towards the place where we had left the pod when we had arrived. "Besides, you guys gotta stay here and fix the ship."

We all slowed to a stop as we reached the end of the wrecked Milano's edge, watching as Quill ran soon out of sight. Man, who knew he could actually run that kind of fast? was a thought that flung itself silently through my brain as it happened.

"I am Groot!" Groot called, trying to convince him otherwise.

...

**Planet Otinek**

Fierce snow fell down in gigantic whoops of turning and howling winds and freezing temperatures in a foggy haze around him, as Quill was only focused on his pod's now added tracker device.

"Okay," he muttered to himself, his eyes narrowed, staring completely straight and only at his pod's screen. If his pod hadn't been on autopilot, he would surely have been dead by now.

"Her pod's showing damage. That's not good."

Pod flying over a gigantic cliff to dive down slightly, Quill let go of one of the steering rods he had been gripping hard on to turn on his helmet and look downwards as his machine beeped.

His helmet immediately saw and focused in on Gamora's wrecked pod down below. There was hardly any rubble left to be seen from that high, most of it was now covered up in a raging fire and smoke. He couldn't see Gamora. "And that's even worse." He turned his helmet off.

Quickly landing, he saw Gamora lying on the ground not to far away from the wreck. It seemed as if she had been thrown out as the machine had crashed. He quickly waved off the pod's cover and raced towards her, sliding down on his knees the last few inches to her side. _"Oh please let her be alright,"_ he thought.

Quill softly place both hands on her, trying gently to pull her in. "Don't worry, you're safe." He would protect her with his dying breath.

Gamora's eyes suddenly snapped open, her sitting up as straight as a rod as her hand went out to grab her sword a few inches away subconsciously. Quill jerked back, yelping out of surprise. "Wha-?"

"What are you doing? You'll ruin everything!"

"Ruin wha-?"

"Go away."

A whirring sound was heard before them, along with a sudden addition of bright blue light. They both looked towards it, to see one of Nubula's space pods floating above them, her standing inside.

She jumped down, looking them in the eye the complete time as she was on her bent knees, gun facing up, ready to strike at any moment with her finger already on the trigger. "Hello sister."

She stood up, pointing the gun at them. "You called, I came. Now show me what I want."

A second of silence passed as Quill quickly stood up, arms raised in surrender. "Um, why is Thanos' other daughter here, and why is she not trying to kill you yet?"

Gamora shifted her sword upwards, staggering as she used to help her stand up. "Nebula, you're late. Korath's spies must've learned of our plan. He ambushed me and took the CryptoCube." She put her sword away.

"Wait. Korath has my boom box? " He shifted slightly to see her better. "Aw man Gamora, what have you done?"

Gamora ignored him completely, walking closer to her sister, back still turned to Quill. "Together we can take it back and regain Thanos' good graces."

Nebula smiled slyly. "So, the Nova Corps rumors are true. You do want to be his general. But why include me in your scheme?"

"Because we cannot allow Korath to become our father's favorite."

A second of tense silence past, in which Quill could feel it coming from both the situation and the coldness as the wind pushed on his clothes. This was the perfect place to have a conflict, even the weather tensed up the situation. Brr...he was cold.

"Okay, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. None of this makes any sense," Peter said, stepping to stand alongside Gamora, arms still raised. He slowly lowered one while raising the other to make it look like he was scratching his head in thought. Quickly he pulled out his elemental blaster, finger on the trigger. "Oh, unless it's a plot to take her down, nice Gamora," he said grinning,"I knew we could trust-"

Gamora quickly kicked the blaster out of his hands to then kick him across the face. Quill fell backwards, groaning as he landing face first into the snow. "You should've trusted Nova Prime." Quill could hear her sword being whipped out.

He looked up at them, fear written in his eyes. "Gamora, no."

"You still need to prove that I can trust you," Nebula informed. Her gun was still pointed directly at Gamora. "End him. Now."

Gamora's grip on her sword tightened, Quill only able to stare at his own scared reflection at the bottom of the sword.

Gamora turned to Nebula. "I can't kill him. We need him to operate the CryptoCube."

Nebula's face turned to one of confusion. "Why would we need this fool to operate an empty box?"

Quill grunted in pain as he sat up slightly, looking at Gamora. "No reason, right Gamora?"

"The Pandorian Crystals interact with the CryptoCube to form a map to the Cosmic Seed." Gamora raised her arm, her wristband showing the recorded image of the map. "He's the only one who can work the thing."

"I knew you recording the thing was a bad idea."

The map turned off, Gamora lowering her arm as her eyes practically sighing in regret. She couldn't believe she had to do that. "Why do you think I let him follow me?"

Quill stood the rest of the way up, rubbing his shoulder sadly. "And you say I can't keep a secret," he said in what sounded like complete distrust to Gamora.

Nebula smiled before turning the gun so it only faced Gamora. "Maybe I'll just take him and vaporize you."

"If you thought you could beat Korath without me, you would've already done that," Gamora snapped.

"Or you could just let me go, and then nobody gets the CrytoCube?" Quill said, sounding completely terrified. Gone sounding was her silly friend's voice, but a terrified one, like the ones she used to have in the old days when they begged her to be let go or let live. _Quill..._

Gamora turned and jabbed him right in the middle over.

Quill grunted , going down, and then everything went black...

...

Quill awoke to the sound of silence, a sound he himself was never used too. Even alone, it was never quiet for him, he always turned on his music player, no matter if it had been back on Terra, in a Ravager ship with Yondu, or in the Milano. It helped him, he could never stand the silence, such as the depressing silence of the hospital those days long ago...

Getting off the hard slab of concrete that was supplied as the bed, Quill turned and looked around. Light lightly with an blue light that made everything though really black, blue, it was a rather nice sized cell, bigger than the most he had in his past. Walking to the door he could see out of a little narrow rectangular opening, he could see two of Nebula's rather large henchmen. "Huh, nice room. Time to leave."

He stepped back, looking around for an exit. Finding an air conditioner grate above the end of his so called bed, he stepped up onto it and began to pat himself down. It seemed that they did indeed search him, most of his weapons and belongings at hand were gone. But as he slipped his hand into his underwear he found that he still had the one thing he needed, having putting it there after learning in past experiences.

With his last laser blade, he started to cut open the air conditioner grate.

Meanwhile, one of Nebula's helmsman turned to face the two women inside the main piloting room. Sitting down and smiling widely as Gamora filled her in and waited on her, Nebula crossed her legs in her throne like seat. "Mistress Nebula," the helmsman started, sensing that this was not a time that she wanted to be disturbed as she glared at him, he twitched with fear before continuing. "We are closing in on Korath's ship."

"He hasn't spotted yet, so we still have the element of surprise," Gamora informed. Nebula turned, looking back at Gamora standing before her and went back to smiling.

"There's a weak spot in the shield generator near Korath's main thrusters. Hit him there, and we gain the maneuvering advantage."

Nebula's smug smile got slightly bigger. Boy, did she like having her _sister_ of all people wait on and inform her.

The helmsman spoke up again. "Lord Korath has spotted us!"

"Nebula!" Korath's loud voice rang throughout the room. "What are you doing in this sector?"

"As if you didn't know, Korath," Nebula said, standing up and starting to make her way to the appearing screen of her brother's furious face. "I'm on a mission for the Master, which you are endangering, you troll!"

Unknown by either of them, Gamora started to slowly step back into the shadows.

"The only thing I endanger is your service to the cause of your real master, the traitor Ronan!"

Nebula turned to look to the side for a second. "I had a fondness for Ronan, but he is gone. I serve our father, Thanos. In any event, you lie." Nebula pointed accusingly at Korath's face. "Gamora told me that your spies attacked her and took the object."

"You lie!" Korath accused. "Gamora herself told me to meet her here to receive the CryptoCube. " Korath turned slightly, telling his crew more than Nebula. "Prepare for battle!" The screen turned off.

"Or she's been lying to us both. " She started to turn around. "Gamora, explain yourself." There was no one there.

"Shaktah!"

"Groot, you twig-brained gronka!" Gamora muttered into her wristband as she continued to run, now completely out of the main piloting room and hallways away from it. "You were supposed to keep Quill on the ship. He almost blew everything with his big mouth."

Not knowing, seconds after she turned at the corner, Quill dropped downwards from the air ducts, easy to be seen where she had once been. Glancing around, he started to run in the opposite direction.

"I am Groot," Groot answered solemnly.

"Yeah, I've heard that before. Just get the repairs done. I'll signal you when we're ready for pickup," Gamora's voice said statically out of Groot's wristwatch.

I slowed to a stop, hearing Gamora's voice below. My eyes widened and I dropped the box I had been holding. Racing towards the edge of the ladder of the cockpit, I lowered my head. "Groot!"

Groot turned, shocked. Good...

How, _how_ , could he after all we had been through? He was the one I trusted the most, the first and here he was betraying me? I couldn't believe it. After all this time?

"How could ya? " My voice was more high pitched this time, I allowed it to be. Out of all the people in the universe, he was the one I least suspected. Out of all the people on the team...

My first ever family...

Though incredibly painful, I lowered myself till I hung by my tail. "After all we been through, us have been though, you're in cahoots with that traitor Gamora? "

I couldn't help myself. I launched my self at him, scratching my claws where ever they could reached. No matter what was happening, I was going to do the right thing. Yeah. Quill had said it better himself earlier in the middle of the Ronan fiasco. _Because I'm one of the idiots who lives in it!_

"I am Groot! I am Groot! I am Groot!" Groot cried over my yelps, moving about as he tried to throw me off.

"Explain yourself, tree!" Drax's booming voice was heard over us.

Groot fell downwards, a small something falling out.

Getting up, I saw that it was Quill's CryptoCube. "Wait. You had the box this whole time?"

Drax reached down and started to pick it up. "I am Groot, I am Groot!"

"If Gamora did not steal the CryptoCube, then what did she do?" Drax asked, studying the boom box with sudden interest.

Getting up to sit with his knees up, Groot put his hands on his head. "I am Groot."


End file.
